WORLD WIDE 
BIBLE STUDY 



CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER 




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WORLD-WIDE BIBLE 
STUDY 



World -Wide 
Bible Study 



By 

Clayton Sedgwick C^ooper 

Secretary for Bible Study, Student Department 
International Committee of Youns Men's Chris- 
tian Associations 



Philadelphia 
The Sunday School Times Company 



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PREFACE 

"T^HE object of this book is threefold : First, to 
show the reasons for the world-wide interest 
in the Bible ; second, to point out how people 
may become interested in the Bible ; third, to 
reveal the modern opportunity of the Bible, in 
relation to the state, the school, the home, and 
the church. 

Particular attention is given to the preparation 
and the training of Bible teachers, because of 
the wide-spread need of efficient leadership in 
Bible study. 

The author wishes to express his appreciation 
and indebtedness to The Sunday School Times 
for permission to publish a number of articles 
which have appeared in the Times. He wishes 
also to thank The Christian Herald for like 
permission to include two or three articles pub- 
lished in that paper. 

It is hoped that the point of view presented 
in this book for the study of the Christian Scrip- 
tures by men and women of widely varying 

V 



vi Preface 

belief and race, may assist in bringing to many- 
people a rediscovery of this book whose message 
belongs to the world. 

Clayton Sedgwick Cooper. 
New York City, October lo, 191 1. 



CHAPTER I 

TEN REASONS FOR BIBLE STUDY 

The Universality of the Bible. — The Bible and 
Literary Culture. — The Bible and Life-work. — 
The Bible and the Brotherhood of Man. — The 
Bible and National Ideals. — The Bible and Char- 
acter, — The Optimism of the Bible. — The Bible 
and Service. — The Bible and Personalities. — 
The Bible and Religion i 



CHAPTER II 

THE BIBLE AND CITIZENSHIP 

The Bible in Our Early Settlements. — The Message 
of the Bible to American Commerce. — The 
Bible and Modern Politics. — Through Politics 
to National Religious Faith. — How Shall 
American Citizens Become Interested in the 
Bible? 31 



CHAPTER III 

THE BIBLE IN THE HOME 

Home Impressions. — A Method of Bible Study. — 
The Bible Story. — Co-operation Between Sun- 
day-school Teachers and Parents. — Memorizing 

the Bible 53 

vii 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER IV 

BUSINESS MEN AND THE BIBLE 

Is Business Efficiency Identical with Success? 
— The Bible as a Force in Modern Business. — 
The Bible's Message to the Business Man. — The 
Business Men's Contribution to the Bible 69 

CHAPTER V 

AMERICAN COLLEGE MEN DISCOVERING THE BIBLE 

Specialism and Leadership in College Life. — Ten 
Years of Progress. — How Indifferent Students 
Became Interested. — A Chinese Student's Rea- 
son for Bible Study. — Secrets of Sustaining In- 
terest 81 

CHAPTER VI 

ESSENTIALS IN BIBLE STUDY 

Real Bible Study Leads to Service. — A Conquering 
Optimism Produced by Bible Study. — Bible 
Study and Spiritual Growth 92 

CHAPTER VII 

THE BIBLE TEACHER 

A Clear Sense of Objective. — Modern Knowledge 
of the Bible. — The Knowledge of the Processes 
of Learning and Teaching. — Individual Expres- 
sion 104 



Contents ix 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PREPARATION AND TRAINING OF BIBLE 
TEACHERS 

What is a Training Class? — Functions of the Train- 
ing Class. — The Training Class Teacher. — How 
to Ask Questions. — The Subject Matter. — How- 
to Illustrate. — Comparison of Experience. — Sug- 
gestion Rather Than Knowledge. — Emphasis on 
Things of the Spirit. — Important Points to 
Remember : ^21 



CHAPTER IX 

MAINTAINING INTEREST AND ATTENDANCE IN 
BIBLE CLASSES 

The Bible Study Organizer, a Real Leader of Men. 
— The Bible Class Teacher. — An Assistant to 
the Teacher. — Personal Interviews with the 
Students. — Personal Invitation Immediately 
Preceding the Class Hour. — The Teacher-Train- 
ing Class. — The Bible Institute. — Training at 
Bible Conferences. — Carefully Selected Bible 
Courses. — Bible Addresses, Lectures and Ques- 
tionnaires. — Bible Reference Libraries. — Meet- 
ings for Evangelism. — Social Features. — The 
"Group Plan" of Bible Study 148 



CHAPTER X 

THE BIBLE AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

Clear Ideas. — Bible Knowledge in King James' 
Period. — Spiritual Culture. — Individual Bible 
Studv. — Practice. — What Are We Doing About 
It ? 170 



X Contents 

CHAPTER XI 

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE BIBLE IN OUR 
MODERN LIFE? 

The Bible and the American Home. — The Bible and 
Education in the Public School. — Bible Study 
for the Church. — Bible Study and Religious 
Education in Colleges. — A Statesmanlike Leader 
of Bible Interests in Every Institution. — Faculty 
Men as Bible Promoters. — Bible Study and the 
World's Education 182 

APPENDIX 

WORLD-WIDE WITNESS TO THE BIBLE 

Witness to the Bible in Literature and Education. — 
Witness to the Bible from World Leaders. — 
Witness of Great Men to the Moral and Re- 
ligious Values of the Bible i99 



CHAPTER I 

TEN REASONS FOR BIBLE STUDY 

"T* HE Bible is the best selling book in the 
world. Its sales average 10,000,000 
copies a year. More Bibles were sold in 1910 
than any other hundred books together. This 
did not happen by chance, for a similar ratio 
of sales has long existed. There are valid 
causes for this unprecedented popularity and 
world-wide influence. Out of many I would 
point out ten reasons for the Bible, almost any 
one of which would be sufficient to make the 
book immortal. 

The comprehensive character of this book 
is shown by its international and universal 
acceptation. The Bible has escaped provincial- 
ism; it belongs to the world. It is a book of 
all races and all religions, of all sorts and con- 
ditions of men. It has been translated into 
more than 450 different languages and dialects. 
The Bible was called by Huxley "the Magna 
Charta of the poor and oppressed," and Eras- 



2 World-Wide Bible Study 

mus said of the Scriptures that ''the husband- 
man might sing parts of them at his plow- 
tail, the weaver might warble them at his shut- 
tle, the traveler might with their narratives 
beguile the weariness of his way." A well- 
known educator of India — a Hindu professor 
— informed me that the educated men of India 
know the Bible better than they know any sa- 
cred book of Hinduism. In Korea the Bible 
is practically the national book. Great difficulty 
is experienced in furnishing enough Bibles at 
twenty-two cents apiece to supply the Koreans. 
A few years ago one Korean church ordered 
20,000 copies of the New Testament. The 
publishing of these books was delayed for a 
brief time, with the result that every copy was 
sold before a single one was printed. Fully 
one-half of the 3,000 young men in China who 
expressed their interest by enlistment in Bible 
classes during my visit to that country were 
Confucianists. Four hundred and twenty- 
eight thousand Bibles were purchased by the 
Chinese in 19 10. Among the 28,562 students 
who attended Bible classes for two months or 
more in the North American colleges in 19 10, 
6,156 men were non-Christians. This number 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 3 

included, besides English, Canadian, and 
American students, Japanese, Ceylonese, Mexi- 
cans, North American Indians, East Indians, 
Negroes, South Americans, Russians, Italians, 
Hebrews, Chinese, Germans, French, West 
Indians, Cubans and Hawaiians. 

The following different religious faiths and 
shades of opinion are found among the college 
men studying the Bible: Protestant, Catholic, 
Jewish, Hindu, Confucianist, Shinto, Muham- 
madan, Greek church, Boodhist, with a large 
number of men espousing no particular relig- 
ious belief. 

One hundred and eighty-five thousand copies 
of the Bible in 36 different languages were 
distributed among immigrants arriving in 
New York the past year from the hands of 
agents of the American Bible Society. The 
combined sales of Bibles by this Society and 
the British Bible Societies recently reached five 
hundred millions of Bibles — a vast number of 
which have been printed in foreign languages 
and sold to peoples all over the earth. Such 
universality of demand and use is unparalleled 
in literature. The Bible, as Goethe said, is 
the "Book of the nations." 



4 World-Wide Bible Study 

This universality of the Bible is proved not 
simply by the extent of its use by diverse 
nations and by peoples of diverse belief. In- 
deed, this wide popularity is founded upon the 
universal applicability of the contents of this 
book to all life. The Bible is the book for 
humanity. It is dateless — it is perennial litera- 
ture. Its immutable principles are primary 
and absolute, unconditioned by provinciality, 
tradition, or time. It touches human nature 
in all of its depths and ranges — down out of 
reach of national, social, or religious differ- 
ences. It reveals generic types by describ- 
ing individuals. The twelve disciples of Jesus 
form a suggestive study of mental and tem- 
peramental types. The Bible men and women, 
as Lowell said of Shakespeare's characters, 
are "the contemporaries of any generation, be- 
cause they are not products of an artificial and 
transitory society, but because they are ani- 
mated by the primeval and unchanging forces 
of that humanity which underlies and survives 
the forever fickle creeds and ceremonials of 
the parochial corners which we who dwell in 
them sublimely call the world." No ideal or 
experience or memory of any part of mankind 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 5 

IS absent from the Bible. It contains, indeed, 
the ''Ideal form and universal mould'* of life 
itself. It possesses the vitality of nature. *'The 
words that I speak unto you," said the Master, 
''they are spirit and they are life." 

The Bible is the book of general education. 
"Get learning, get understanding," said Solo- 
mon. Ex-President Eliot omitted the Bible 
and Shakespeare from his five-foot shelf of 
books, saying, when asked why he did this, 
that he took it for granted that every one 
knew the Bible and Shakespeare. The New 
York Sun remarked that it was the usual 
opinion that a thorough knowledge of the Bible 
and Shakespeare constitutes in itself a liberal 
education. Sir Edwin Arnold said: "I owe 
my education as a writer more to the Bible 
than to anv other hundred books that could 
be named." There are Bible allusions in 37 
of Shakespeare's plays. Dr. van Dyke reports 
in the October, 19 10, issue of the Century 
Magazine more than five hundred direct refer- 
ences to the Bible in Tennyson. He continues : 
"Professor Albert T. Cook has recently 
counted sixty-three Bible references in a vol- 
ume of descriptive sketches of Italy, twelve 



6 World-Wide Bible Study 

in a book on wild animals, and eighteen in a 
novel by Thomas Hardy." 

The references to the Bible in the poetry 
of Robert Browning have been very carefully 
examined by Mrs. Minnie Gresham Machen 
in an admirable little book. In his longest 
poem, "The Ring and the Book," there are 
said to be more than five hundred Biblical ref- 
erences. 

With what pathos does Sir Walter Scott, 
in the "Heart of Midlothian," make old Davie 
Deans bow his head when he sees his daughter 
Effie on trial for her life, and mutter* to him- 
self, "Ichabod! my glory is departed!" How 
magnificently does Ruskin enrich his "Sesame 
and Lilies" with that passage from Isaiah in 
which the fallen kings of Hades start from 
their thrones to greet the newly fallen with 
the cry, "Art thou also become as weak as 
we ? Art thou become like unto us ?" Brown- 
ing's "Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day," a poem 
of 2,500 lines, alludes to the Bible 130 times. 
"The Bible is my book," said Victor Hugo. 
Scott said, when dying: "Bring me the book." 
When asked what book, he said: "Need you 
ask? There is but one." 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 7 

The Bible is full of literary imagination and 
suggestion. It teaches truth with that mystic 
symbolism and delicate touch that charm and 
illumine and incite. It is immortal in its verse. 
Edwin Markham says of the poetry of Jesus: 
"Jesus lifts the worn and pedagogic into the 
peerage of poetry. He changes sand into j>earl ; 
he turns cloud into rainbow." The Bible's 
style has been the model of the world's litera- 
ture in its highest mood. It is rich in that 
nervous *^conceptive energy" which invigor- 
ates the mind. It is the highest example ex- 
tant of what Lowell calls "that wonderful com- 
posite called English, the best result of the 
confusion of tongues." Professor Phelps, of 
Yale, makes the suggestion that all examina- 
tions in English for college men be confined 
to the Bible. "If everything else in our lan- 
guage should perish," wrote Macaulay, "the 
Authorized Bible alone would suffice to show 
the whole extent of its beauty and power." 

And Whittier has expressed in lasting verse 
the value of the Bible as literature : 

"We search the world for truth ; we cull 
The good, the pure, the beautiful, 
From graven stone and written scroll, 



8 World-Wide Bible Study 

From all old flower-fields of the soul; 
And, weary seekers of the best, 
We come back laden from our quest, 
To find that all the sages said 
Is in the Book our mothers read." 

A life-work is made great by its emphasis, 
by its accent upon the issues that count. A 
great man is known by the things he omits 
as well as by the things he emphasizes. A 
vocation is determined by a clear perspective 
of real values, a sense of right relations, good 
judgment, ability to see things in the propor- 
tion of reality. 

The Bible furnishes here an unimpeachable 
guide. It affords what the Germans call the 
sense of "inner mission.'* Here are the root 
principles, the outlines of great and high living 
and thinking: the individual must fill in the 
personal details. Nor does the Bible assist 
simply in the choice of a work, presenting op- 
portunity to a particular temperament for spe- 
cial service, but it is indispensable in its fre- 
quent suggestion along the way, as a corrective, 
regulator, and reminder. Bible study is lim- 
ited only by its vision, by its reserve, and by 
its readiness to be called out to its supreme 
bounds. 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 9 

It assists life work by keeping the career of 
a man clear of the obstructing impedimenta 
which hinder real progress. It accomplishes 
this only for those who become serious enough 
in Bible study to make it a regular habit. A 
vocation is as great as it has capacity to be. 
It is as big as it is in its crises. Bible study, 
when it assumes regular phases, produces a 
state of mind and heart conducive to poise 
and power. It brings "peace of mood." A 
Bible habit offers a refuge in calamity and sor- 
row; as a solace in grief it is unapproachable. 
It furnishes equipment for unexpected occa- 
sions. Many a career has been saved by a 
habit that produces what Napoleon called "two 
o'clock in the morning courage," the force to 
act right when life is at its lowest levels. Mr. 
Moody used to say, "This book will keep 
me from sin, and sin will keep me from this 
book." 

"In Life's small things be resolute and great 
To keep thy muscles trained ; knowst thou when Fate 
Thy measure takes? or when she'll say to thee, 
*I find thee worthy, do this thing for me'?" 

The Bible is the book of friendship. A vital 
reason for Bible study resides in the fact that 



lo World-Wide Bible Study 

it opens the way for gaining friends and be- 
coming a ''brother of the guild which passes 
the torch of Hfe from age to age." It creates 
the still, deep atmosphere in which true af- 
fection is born. Jesus staked His whole gos- 
pel upon the transforming power of friendship- 
love. He revealed there His broad sympathy. 
The church of the Bible is far more inclusive 
than the church of to-day. The Bible loves 
where we often scorn or despair. Jesus said 
seventy times seven sins should be forgiven, 
for He was the "friend of sinners." We find 
it hard at times to forgive once. The read- 
ing of the Bible gives wide-spaced charity and 
a sense of interest in men without which suc- 
cess is empty and progress is pitiably aim- 
less. 

At one of our universities in the Middle 
West a member of a Greek letter society 
said: 

"I always respected my friend. I never 
really loved him until I discovered him in his 
deeper mood in a Bible class." 

The reason for Bible study is i Corinthians 
13: "The greatest of these is love." Is there 
a finer secret of modern success than learning 




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Ten Reasons for Bible Study ii 

to treat men — all kinds of men — as God treats 
them — to really care? Norman Gale said: 

"The daybreak comes when Christ with tender face 
Welcomes the poor in spirit — who were least." 

At one of our universities recently I met 
five men who were among the most repre- 
sentative students in the senior class. They 
told me that in their freshman year a certain 
upper classman had asked them to meet with 
him in his room for an hour once a week to 
take up a certain line of Bible study and to 
talk over personal and college problems. These 
men affirmed, however, that the class hour was 
only a small part of the value of this relation- 
ship, since the upper classman became really 
and truly their friend. He was interested in 
their entire life; he gave up his pleasures and 
at least one vacation because of his sincere in- 
terest in different members of the group. For 
two years this class was conducted in like 
friendly fashion, and, after the teacher gradu- 
ated, these five men, who held at least four 
of the highest positions in the gift of the un- 
dergraduate body, were each in turn conduct- 
ing similar groups. The present uprising of 



12 World-Wide Bible Study 

students for Bible study finds its secret not 
simply in discussion of abstract principles, but 
as well in the deep appreciation of the vast 
opportunities and privileges of a great college 
brotherhood. To learn from the Bible, friend- 
ship — the master passion — this is permanently 
valuable. 

The late Senator Dolliver said to me a short 
time before he died: "Our modern political 
life needs the recreating power of the Gospels ; 
it needs change from within more than it needs 
external panaceas.'* 

The modern national revival of civic spirit 
and social activities calls for the type of man 
and the kind of idealism that the Old Testa- 
ment prophets present. Emerson once said: 
"The glory of a nation does not depend 
upon the size of its census, or the size of its 
cities, or the size of its crops, but upon the 
kind of man the country turns out." The 
Bible has proved itself the nation's greatest 
book, as it has been wrought into the life and 
ideals of its great men. It has been the solace 
and inspiration of national leadership in men 
like Gladstone, Lincoln, Jackson, Sydney, 
Garibaldi, Joseph Neesima, Carey, Milton, 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 13 

Victor Hugo and hundreds of other public 
men. The late Justice David J. Brewer is 
quoted as saying, "No nation is better than 
its sacred book. In that book are expressed 
its highest ideals of life, and no nation rises 
above those ideals." The Bible was the rock 
upon which our fathers built our early civiliza- 
tion, those men 'Svho set their consciences by 
the will of God as countrymen set their clocks 
by the sun." The pilgrim with a staff in his 
hand and a Bible beneath his arm is carved in 
bronze and stone in our parks and commons, 
because thus he was equipped. The Bible was 
his law and his gospel. ''When you know 
how a nation deals with the Bible you may 
know what that nation is," said a Bishop of 
the English Church. It has affected directly 
the social and political ideals of nations in its 
high principles set forth for governments. An- 
drew Jackson called the Bible the rock upon 
which our republic rests. A professor in a 
Middle West institution uses the book of 
Proverbs as his sole text-book in teaching 
political economy and social ethics. The 
ground strain of the Old Testament was na- 
tional righteousness as the eternal foundation. 



14 World-Wide Bible Study 

"Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests 
and an holy nation," said Jehovah. These 
personal and national ideals have permeated 
the highest Christian civilizations. This ideal 
of constitutional government was from the 
Bible, from the Hebrews. It was contrary to 
Oriental government principles, which elevated 
the ruler at the expense of the people. The 
Bible makes the people supreme. Their rights, 
their obligations, their possibilities are its 
theme. As Dr. W. W. Moore points out, a 
hundred years before Plato dreamed of his 
ideal republic, Jethro and Moses were work- 
ing on Mount Sinai at the foundation of re- 
publican government presenting a written con- 
stitution to which public assent was given by 
the people. 

We are now beginning to study with serious- 
ness the political and social ideals of Jesus. 
Thousands of students discussed last year in 
the colleges the questions of the relation of 
Bible Christianity to labor and capital, poverty 
and crime, and the problems of rural and 
municipal life in America. These are life ques- 
tions and they are Bible questions. Such study 
is not only bringing a new conception of the 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 15 

Word of God — it is assisting especially in the 
recasting and reorganizing of our national and 
intellectual ideals relative to the changing con- 
ditions of the twentieth century. *'To this" 
(book) says Ulysses Grant, "we must look 
as our guide in the future." "Every one there- 
fore that heareth these words of mine, and 
doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, 
who built his house upon the rock: and the 
rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew, and beat upon that house; and 
it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock.'' 
Our age is one that often turns away from 
professional and enforced presentation of 
moral truths, but it is everywhere keen for 
those unlabeled suggestions that make for un- 
divided strength, for self-control, — for the cul- 
ture of the will. Christianity wins to-day by 
persuasion rather than by pressure, by in- 
fluence rather than force. In many cities and 
towns the organization called the "Gideons" 
has recently placed Bibles in every room of 
the leading hotels. It is reported that the elec- 
tric light and gas bills of these hotels and 
boarding houses immediately increased. As 
one man, who found a Bible in a Chicago hotel, 



i6 World-Wide Bible Study 

expressed it, "I never knew before that I was 
interested in religion." The Bible is to be 
increasingly the silent but effective power for 
the production of firm morals and serious 
thinking concerning conduct, as people read it, 
unguardedly, for themselves. The words of 
the Bible reach down to the decisive forces of 
human lives. Here the Bible is unexcelled in 
its pervasive, revolutionary, leavening charac- 
ter. "Everything that sets free our intelli- 
gence without giving us self-control is fatal." 
The free response to the Bible is quick and 
uplifting. 

Thomas Carlyle said that the Bible was the 
one book wherein for thousands of years the 
spirit of man has found light and nourishment, 
and the response to whatever was deepest in 
his heart. The basic, ethical principles, the 
principles that are capable of controlling and 
guiding modern humanity, are here adding 
moral and spiritual energy to material and per- 
sonal energy. The Bible "lights up" morality 
and makes it effective. Its widening use will 
safeguard national and public liberty and prop- 
erty by making men morally able to bear these 
responsibilities. Its general study will fill so- 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 17 

ciety with those standards and sympathies 
which will come to use when the crises arrive. 
The Bible's main theme is righteousness, and 
righteousness is the eternal foundation of the 
nation. The Bible touches the heart of in- 
dividuals and brings humanity to itself. It 
conveys the words of Jesus which were with 
authority — the authority of character. No 
time has needed more than ours to realize that 
behind the institutions of to-day is the indi- 
vidual; behind the capital is the capitalist; be- 
hind labor is the laboring man and the mind 
of society. The man alone is the audience to 
which the Scripture speaks. The Sermon on 
the Mount is a valuation upon single individ- 
uals in their relationships. The reform move- 
ments of to-day must be directed primarily 
against those forces that tend to choke or 
arrest the development of moral personality. 
Greatness has always reached the summit of 
its power through isolated persons, as they have 
cried in the great cry for character: 

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: 
Try me, and know my thought ; 
And see if there be any wicked way in me, 
And lead me in the way everlasting." 



1 8 World-Wide Bible Study 

In one of his superb letters, Robert Louis 
Stevenson said: "As I live, I feel more and 
more that Hterature should be cheerful and 
brave spirited." Of such character is the 
Christian Scriptures. The predominant note 
of the Bible is that of hope and good cheer for 
men. On every page one feels the gospel of 
the Psalmist: 

"Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; 
For Jehovah upholdeth him with his hand." 

Or the triumphant belief of Paul: "I am per- 
suaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor things present, nor 
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to 
separate us from the love of God, which is 
in Christ Jesus our Lord." Or, "There shall 
be an handful of corn in the earth upon the 
top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall 
shake like Lebanon; and they of the city shall 
flourish like grass of the earth." Or the final 
words of Jesus: "I will see you again, and 
your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one 
taketh away from you." 

The Bible gives a clear, straightforward 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 19 

analysis of human nature; it is the sword of 
the Spirit and cuts deep into all lies, sham, and 
hypocrisies of living or thinking ; but the Bible 
never allows criticism or pessimism to pre- 
dominate. Despair is never the last word. 
Moses had his tribulations as a leader, but he 
died in song. The Psalmist forgot his trials in 
his praise. The lost coin, the lost sheep, and 
the lost son are always matched by the res- 
toration and the rejoicing. The Bible and 
despondency never go together. God tells us 
throughout the Scriptures, as he told the dis- 
couraged Elijah, that he has seven thousand 
who have not bowed the knee to Baal. The 
two root principles of Christianity are on 
ev'ery page — a forgiven past and a new future. 
To know God is to love Him and to be happy. 
The Bible is the revelation of God our Father. 
Indeed, the Bible writers seemed to have 
written for man's encouragement: "to find 
out where joy resides and give it a voice fine 
beyond singing." The Bible is the nation's 
call to men to glorify God and to enjoy Him 
forever. Heaven is objectified in the language 
of light and of beauty and of boys and girls 
playing in the streets. 



20 World-Wide , Bible VStudy 

Edmund Burke had the habit of reading a 
chapter of Isaiah before he went to speak in 
the House of Commons. He said: "Isaiah 
possesses both the blaze of eloquence and the 
light of truth." Any man who is inclined to 
be pessimistic or discouraged should read each 
day a psalm, or a bit of Hosea's love song, or 
one of Paul's victorious passages, or the 
promise of Jesus about the sure victory of 
righteousness. The Bible is filled with that 
music which George Eliot called the "gladness 
of the world." The individual who learns 
from personal experience to say: "I know 
whom I have believed," to see a new heaven 
and a new earth, is freed from earth's thraldom. 
It is a liberation of the spirit. The Bible stu- 
dent certainly finds some of the patience and 
faith of the saints. He learns to "abound i^ 
hope." Every page of the Bible to such a man 
is a hymn — a paean of victory — a note of per- 
manent and unquenchable optimism. 

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
the Bible furnished religious propaganda with 
creeds; in the eighteenth century it was 
drawn upon by the great crusades for the 
rights of man, and in the nineteenth century 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 21 

for light on national problems. The twen- 
tieth century has even now opened in a great 
struggle for utilitarian values, as these values 
are evinced in commercial and industrial re- 
sults, on the one hand, and practical social 
and religious reform, on the other. In this 
age the Bible must prove its usefulness to busi- 
ness and to society. The significance and 
charm of its facts will depend upon its em- 
bodiment, its visualization in serviceable, hu- 
man lives. It is not enough to commend the 
Bible as "the good book" — it must be good 
for something. The field to-day is the world 
of needs and deeds. Jesus fills the New Testa- 
ment with a new dignity for work. He him- 
self furnished the sublime example of toil un- 
severed from tranquillity. His words and the 
words of His followers defined the Christian 
as an ambassador, a shepherd, a steward, a 
fighter, a laborer. His command was not 
only to overcome self, but also the world, and 
he gives instruction regarding the method. 
"Arise, let us go," he says, and Christianity 
has been, when true, a purposeful crusade, a 
service campaign for the sake of positive assist- 
ance to the sons of men. The true end and aim 



22 World-Wide Bible Study 

of a well-ordered and contented life is for the 
sake of God through society. "Inasmuch as 
ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Men 
are discovering that social principles and eco- 
nomic rules are found in the Bible — not as 
catalogued injunctions for every changing de- 
tail of life, but as great, guiding, informing 
ideas to be discovered, thought through, and 
adapted to social progress by men who both 
think and act, by men who are good, but who 
are also useful. 

The Bible drives men out to follow Jesus — 
to seek and to save. Its message is for peace 
by means of strife and toil, and risk and dis- 
aster. The Bible study objective for the 
twentieth century is not to discuss in quiet and 
delightful retirement the problems of good and 
evil, but to find God's message in order 
forthwith to do it. God's call to-day is for 
"doers of the word, not hearers only." His 
desire is for men of daring and action. 

"Oh prudence is a right good thing 

And those are useful friends, 
Who never make beginnings 
Until they see the ends. 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 23 

"6ui now and then give me a man 

And I will make him king, 
Just to take the consequences, 
Just to do the thing." 

"If ye know these things," said the Master, 
"happy are ye if ye do them." 

Bible history is biography and autobiog- 
raphy. It is the revelation of giant personali- 
ties, of ''mountainous men." This is one 
reason for its enduring character. It holds the 
mirror up to nature — human nature — and it 
reveals the motives, convictions, ideals, hopes 
and fears of immortal personalities in mortal 
life. 

''The great mission and priceless value of 
the Bible," says Dr. Henry Churchill King, 
"are, that it puts us in touch with the most 
significant lives of the world, in the greatest 
realm, — that of the moral and spiritual, — 
the lives that we need most of all, because 
religion is the great unlocker of the powers of 
men." 

In one of the large American universities 
the Christian activities and Bible study seemed 
incapable of rising above a passive dead-level. 
The faculty was indifferent to vital religion,. 



24 World-Wide Bible Study 

and the students were too busy with the pur- 
suit of technical learning, *'In action's dizzy- 
ing eddy whirled" to perceive that Presence 
which pervades the world. To think of or to 
emphasize the eternally zn^orth while was for- 
eign to the life of the institution — indeed, men 
frankly admitted that they were not interested 
in such subjects. But this lethargic and in- 
different sense was suddenly broken, and then 
the student body became aware of a new spirit 
moving within it : a new building for Christian 
work — fresh objectives for social service — 
newly enlisted professors and representative 
students — a large fund raised for helpers — 
hundreds of men enrolled in the Bible classes, 
— truly a new attitude to religion, to men, to 
the Bible. Why? A student with unquench- 
able enthusiasm and fortitude of heart — a man 
of influence and unselfish ideals — had been ap- 
pointed to lead the Christian forces. These 
were the main points of his policy : 

1. Stop apologizing for Christianity and the Bible. 

2. Look at things in the Big. 

3. Do a lot of work and don't talk much about it. 

iHe brought to the situation inflexible purpose. 
He was asked to lead, and he took his leader- 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 25 

ship seriously. He believed irresistibly in his 
cause. Indifferent conditions were matters to 
be overcome, not lamented. He contributed 
to that university the all-compelling force of a 
distinct, meaningful and commanding person- 
ality. He represented something more valiant 
than a method, namely, a man. 

Bible study is the study of triumphant per- 
sonalities. "Amos," says Cornill, "is one of 
the most marvelous and incomprehensible fig- 
ures in the history of the human mind, the 
pioneer of a process of evolution from which 
a new epoch of humanity dates." It is worth 
while to be touched by such individuality. 
Harnack said : "When God and everything 
that is sacred seem to overwhelm us, and the 
bounds of good and evil to dissolve; when, 
weak and weary, we despair of finding God at 
all in this dismal world — it is then that the 
personality of Christ may save us." 

The Bible is personal and directed to the in- 
dividual. We see our needs in the terms of 
men of like passions with ourselves — we espe- 
cially find our desires and our tendencies cen^ 
tering in the life and teaching of Jesus. We 
find that he was more modern than our teach- 



26 World-Wide Bible Study 

ers to-day. His breadth of mind and sweep 
of sympathies would almost debar him from 
membership in some of our religious orders. 
He was natural and sincerely human. He 
came eating and drinking. He took part in 
life's festivities. He denounced cant and sham 
piety with his fiercest language. He loved the 
paths of men — women and children followed 
him in the streets. He did not simply talk 
about the needs of men. He lifted them. The 
personality of Jesus is sufficient reason for 
Bible study. 

John Shairp was right: 

"Subtlest thought shall fail and learning falter, 
Churches change, forms perish, come and go ; 

But our human needs, they will not alter, 
Christ no other age shall e'er outgrow. 

Yea, O changeless One, Thou only- 
Art life's guide and spiritual goal; 

Thou the light across the dark vale lonely; 
Thou the eternal haven of the soul." 

Our times are desperately in need of con- 
structive religious teaching — the leadership of 
men who do and dare because they think, and 
know what Christianity is all about. Such 
men carry their doctrine in a great mind and 
a great character. Men are beholding with 



Ten Reasons for Bible Study 27 

consternation the passing of those forms of 
rehgion in the church and in society with 
which faith has been associated. Persons who 
have depended upon certain creeds, or sym- 
bols, or ceremonies, cry to-day : What have we 
left? Is Christianity a failure? Is the Bible 
to be reHed upon longer? Professor Francis 
Peabody, of Harvard, says : '*A man in a uni- 
versity must fight to keep his soul alive." This 
is true enough of any man in any sphere of 
existence: it is peculiarly true in the educa- 
tional institutions of to-day. 

The college man leaves a home of nineteenth 
century orthodoxy. He enters college, and 
by his junior year he feels somehow what he 
dare not utter, that his former moulds of re- 
ligion will hardly hold modern culture and 
modern science, and the modern attitude of 
mind. His first impulse is to think that his 
religion has gone. With Micah he cries : The 
Danites have carried off my gods. What have 
I left? But to-day he is turning to the Bible 
for his answer, and tens of thousands of col- 
legians all over the world are now seriously 
engaged in Bible study. 

This revival is not in vain, for the Bible is 



28 World-Wide Bible Study 

a spiritual book; it is the message of Jehovah 
to his creation. It is replete with great relig- 
ious questions which are life eternal questions: 
Where did we come from ? Why are we here ? 
Whither do we go ? It is the completest record 
of the deepest human emotions and experi- 
ences. It is the story of the religious conflicts 
and victories of the great pioneers of civiliza- 
tion. These are not ephemeral problems. 
They are perennial problems. They furnish 
the ground motives of human action, — the 
all-sufficient knowledge, for one feels that 
here the thing is said, and said forever. 
These truths are found to inhere in man's 
inmost essence. They underlie theology, 
which is the science of religion. They 
run deeper than Christian service and Chris- 
tian missions, which are the voices of religion. 
Bible truths last when temporalities fade, for 
"Is not the life more than the food, and the 
body than the raiment?'* 

The Bible cannot lose its fascination, for it 
adds another world to our sense world — the 
world of the spirit, "a new heaven and a new 
earth." It gives the only satisfying explana- 
tion of life which has ever been formulated, as 




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Ten Reasons for Bible Study 29 

a great adventure of the spirit in a world of 
spiritual realities. It is connected with the 
primal loyalties — God and Christ and human- 
ity and prayer and worship. It is the story 
of the life of God in the soul of man. 

In the city of Allahabad an Oxford gradu- 
ate related to me his experience with a Brah- 
man student who read the Bible with him for 
over a year. Especial attention was given to 
the life and teaching of Jesus. No reference 
was made to the personal acceptance of Christ 
on the part of this Brahman student. At the 
end of the year, however, the teacher said 
one day to his Hindu scholar, ''What do you 
think of Jesus Christ?" The answer came 
slowly, but with peculiar certainty, "I think 
that Jesus Christ was the greatest man who 
ever lived. I think — yes, I know — he is my 
Saviour." 

Job and John found life just a stuff to try 
the soul's strength on. Jesus laid hold upon 
life, and used it to the full, but, as a great 
engineer would use a mighty bridge that he 
thrusts out before him across a stream — a 
path, but not a goal. He loved life because 
it afforded his indomitable spirit a chance to 



30 World-Wide Bible Study 

breathe, to grow, to work, and to aspire. But 
he always knew that he possessed a soul! 

So as individuals and as a people we take 
our Bible, this biography of the human spirit 
relating itself to life and to God by the way 
of the soul. We take it for idealism in the 
midst of the mighty confused currents of the 
times. We take it for courage to fight on when 
all conditions seem ill, and hope is spent. We 
take it for light when the night shadows fall 
across the room where we are working our 
appointed tasks; we take it for world defeat, 
and recall that they said Jesus failed; we take 
it for grace, for sufficient redemptive grace 
when purity has fled, when the joy of life has 
been put out by sin, when appetite has become 
the captain of the soul; for it is the Bible 
which pours over our broken hearts the balm: 
"Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no 
more.'* We shall forevermore love and come 
back to the Bible, because it reveals to our 
thirsty, longing, human hearts the love of God 
in the person of Jesus Christ. 

"Lo thy sons whom thou sendest away. They come 
gathered from the west unto the east by the word of 
the Holy One, rejoicing in the remembrance of God." 



CHAPTER II 

THE BIBLE AND CITIZENSHIP 

pERHAPS the most impressive moment in 
the coronation exercises of King George 
of England occurred when the Dean of West- 
minster took the Holy Bible from the altar 
and delivered it to the Archbishop, who, in 
turn, presented it to the king, saying: 

"Our gracious King, we present you with this Book, 
— the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here 
is wisdom ; this is the real law ; these are the lively 
oracles of God." 

The Bible in Our Early Settlements. — With 
this traditional Biblical influence the American 
nation began its life. Ambassador Bryce, at 
the tercentenary celebration of the Bible, drew 
attention to the fact that this anniversary 
united England and America with close ties, 
since at the time of the making of this Eng- 
lish revised Bible the unity of the two coun- 
tries was not simply in sentiment; it was also 
in fact. 

31 



32 World-Wide Bible Study 

Out of this strong regard for the Scrip- 
tures, our Pilgrim Fathers brought the Bible 
to American shores as their chief guide for 
both church and state. With it they solved 
their early problems in the settlement of so- 
cial and civic disputes and nation building. 
Indeed, the cardinal object in leaving the 
fatherland was in order that these sturdy re- 
ligious crusaders might be untrammeled in 
their inclination and convictions concerning 
this Book. Individual liberty of interpretation 
of the Scriptures, with a deep personal free- 
dom of conscience, made the Bible the first 
book of these early founders of state. In the 
squares and commons of New England we still 
see the significant stone or bronze Pilgrim with 
a Bible beneath his arm — his constant com- 
panion and guardian for life. 

The degree to which later questions of 
American civic, municipal, and national life 
have depended upon the Bible is not always 
fully apprehended. Dr. W. W. Moore, in his 
excellent treatise entitled ''The Indispensable 
Book," draws attention to the fact that our 
American idea of government, making the 
rulers exist for the good of the people, was de- 



The Bible and Citizenship 33 

rived from the Old Testament teaching of God 
to the Hebrews. There the Oriental idea of 
government for the sake of lifting into prom- 
inence the ruler is revised. 

For Jehovah's portion is his people (Deut. 32 : 9). 

For Jehovah taketh pleasure in his people : 

He will beautify the meek with salvation (Psalm 149 : 

4). 
As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that 

thou wilt not let them go? (Exod. 9 : 17.) 
If thou lend money to any of my people with thee 

that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor, 

neither shall ye lay upon him interest. (Exod. 22 : 

25.) 

If one would discover the influence of the 
Bible in our national citizenship, let him read 
the Constitution of the United States, or some 
of the early books of law, making note of Bib- 
lical references and allusions. The Bible is 
quoted in almost every one of America's im- 
pressive public documents, in virtually every 
great and national message, and it is the at- 
tendant of well-nigh every important cere- 
monial or sacrament of American civic and 
national life. Bible precepts are woven into 
nearly every creed — social, or political — of the 
nation. The stronger fraternal organizations 



34 World-Wide Bible Study 

have given so large a place in their rituals to 
the Bible that some members of such societies 
regard their vow of allegiance as equivalent to 
a Christian vow. 

When recently the Society of the Gideons 
placed in the rooms of many leading hotels 
copies of the Bible, the act seemed at once to 
people, regardless of belief or race, quite ap- 
propriate and profitable, — a perfectly natural 
occurrence. 

Virtually every great representative Ameri- 
can has not only spoken highly of the Bible, but 
has made a thorough study of this Book. An- 
drew Jackson spoke of the Bible as the rock on 
which bur republic rests. Lincoln knew the Bi- 
ble better than any other one piece of literature : 
his sayings and his words remaining to us are 
filled with references of high estimation for the 
Christian Scriptures. A certain kind of skepti- 
cism was assigned to Thomas Jefferson, but 
he once made this statement, "I always have 
said, and always will say, that the perusal of 
the sacred volume will make better citizens, 
better fathers, and better Christians." The 
statements of Ulysses Grant are well-known, 
"Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of 




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The Bible and Citizenship 35 

our liberties ; write its precepts on your hearts, 
and practise them in your lives." 

In view of the evident importance of the 
message of the Bible to our nation, let us con- 
sider its concrete word to our own time. As 
this Book has had a voice for every mood of 
our country's life, it must have something defi- 
nite and direct to say to us to-day. It would 
seem that there has not been a time in Ameri- 
can history when as a people we were more 
busily engaged in shaping and readjusting our 
national and international policies, in building 
up mighty fortunes, in revamping our social 
and religious creeds in the light of new de- 
mands, in building a government of the people 
and by the people upon principles equal and 
just. 

To such a time as this the word of the Bible 
comes to Americans in a threefold message, to 
our commercial, to our political, and to our 
spiritual life. 

The Message of the Bible to American Com- 
merce. — The sixty-six varied and vital books 
of Scripture have a direct bearing upon the 
world of affairs. These pages are alive with 
examples of kingdoms and men rising only to 



36 World-Wide Bible Study 

fall because they have not seen clearly the real 
objective of wealth and business. Babylon and 
Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, Solomon and 
Caesar, are in the Bible for a purpose. How 
many of our citizens are reading these thrilling 
histories and biographies in relation to our own 
times ? 

Jesus' descriptions and teachings reveal the 
fact that he foresaw the difficulties of seeing in 
correct proportion the things of the world. 
With pathetic humor he pictures men foolishly 
building houses on sand; shortsightedly erect- 
ing new barns to hold fleeting treasure; rich 
men thinking to buy happiness with gold ; souls 
that gain the world but lose themselves. He 
describes, also, people like ourselves, giving 
little time to reflection, often worried and busy 
with the cares and deceitfulness of worldly 
accumulation, missing the ''better part" that he 
said Mary, the sister of Lazarus, had chosen. 
He is constantly reminding us of the pearl of 
great price, and the bread of life. The peace 
that passeth knowledge, the rest that is un- 
touched by fears of the morrow, the joy made 
full in unselfish labor for others, the death that 
is a door to more abundant life — such values 



The Bible and Citizenship 37 

the Master is ever placing in direct contrast to 
mere things. 

In other words, the Bible brings our com- 
mercial ideas to the judgment seat of wisdom 
which the Old Testament writer calls "under- 
standing." It is judgment, sense of right, 
proper perspective upon the affairs of life, 
character, ability to see through the action to 
the goal, — and this is the gift of Bible study. 
It reminds us constantly that the Kingdom of 
God and his righteousness have their rightful 
home in the practical relationships of every- 
day life. 

That such a domination of American com- 
mercialism is to-day needed will hardly be 
denied by any thoughtful person who has 
looked at all closely into our diverse life. A 
clear-eyed modern inteipreter of America has 
said that historical mindedness and patience 
are the two traits most needed by our national 
temperament; these are qualities largely de- 
veloped through the achievement of clear ideas 
concerning fundamental issues. Too often the 
relationships of our ideas and work are not 
clearly grasped. We distrast our own judg- 
ments because we have not given time and 



38 World-Wide Bible Study 

thought to the development of our personal 
ideals. For ten years I have traveled on an 
average of forty thousand miles each season, 
for the most part upon trains crossing the 
American continent. The conversations which 
one hears upon such trains reveal the des- 
perate need of such individual culture as 
a systematic use of the Bible would af- 
ford. There is the evident lack of delicate 
personal reserve; there is often present the 
vulgar flaunting of money values; the estima- 
tion of values in houses, estates, automobiles; 
the ambition overtopping all else to make good 
materially; and on all the dollar-mark so large 
that one searches almost in vain to find the 
man beneath. It is not strange that our na- 
tion has become to foreigners almost a byword, 
a synonym for millionaire. We find the natives 
of Europe and Asia saying that they need only 
a few minutes with an American to learn what 
his financial standing is, where he has traveled, 
and what he has paid for his clothing and au- 
tomobile. In Japan, in fact throughout the 
East, shopkeepers will give up all customers 
to attend to American travelers, whose chief 
object, they think, is to spend money. 



The Bible and Citizenship 39 

In crossing the Yellow Sea in a small 
steamer, I was conferring with a keen Scotch- 
man who had said that he was often amazed at 
the vulgarity of Americans in parading in pub- 
lic their wealth and commercial successes. I 
was trying to contend that this is becoming less 
common in America, and that Americans as a 
class were interested not so much in money as 
their ideals, for which money is a necessity; 
that this materialistic phase attendant upon 
national progress is laying the foundations for 
our future art, literature and religion. Sud- 
denly in a lull of our conversation a loud and 
distinctly Yankee voice was heard from a dis- 
tant table in the dining-room, and this was the 
question: "Say, old man, what do you have to 
pay for a sirloin steak at the Holland House?" 
The Scotchman looked at me with a merry 
twinkle in his eye ; my argument, for a moment 
at least, was frustrated. 

This time spirit, this emphasis upon things 
as gods, is due to haste, to the fitful unrest and 
confusion of our days, rather than to our lack 
of seriousness. Frequently I meet men who 
confess that they have not read a book in a 
year. These men are not frivolous men — quite 



40 World-Wide Bible Study 

the opposite. They are speciaHsts in buy- 
ing and selHng, in advertising, in real estate, in 
money, crops, machinery, or poHtics; but they 
are looking at their ''thing" so closely that they 
see but dimly, if at all, the broader horizon of 
life. They are men who cannot see the woods 
for the trees. I asked a fellow traveler re- 
cently about the chief political tendencies of his 
section. His answer was : "I am too busy to 
bother about politics." Such men, who are too 
busy to observe the signs of the times, are also 
too preoccupied to discover whither their own 
lives are tending. 

The danger of American life to-day is that 
the majority of people will come to beHeve that 
nothing pays but that which brings money. If 
such conditions become universal, this nation, 
like Babylon, will be crushed by the vulgarity 
of its ambition; smothered beneath the moun- 
tain of its materialism. 

The general reading and study of the Bible 
has been one mighty influence to keep the ex- 
clusive and final desire of people upon things 
personally valuable, things eternally worth 
while. It has developed individuality, poise, 
and deliberate habits; it has given restful con- 



The Bible and Citizenship 41 

trol over the means of life; it has taught the 
man of affairs the real uses of leisure; it has 
restrained violence, impulsive and spasmodic 
action through the realization that the world is 
"just a stuff to try the soul's strength on." 

The Bible and Modern Politics. — In the past 
ten years we have witnessed a remarkable 
moral renaissance in American public affairs. 
This revival of conscience in connection with 
our national life can be traced to several causes. 
It is inherent in the temperament of Americans 
who are frankly honest, though long-suffering, 
intensely earnest, often excessive, and fre- 
quently changeable in their pursuance of seri- 
ous lines of action. Perhaps no two men have 
accomplished more in connection with this 
ethical revival in America than have ex-Presi- 
dent Roosevelt while at the White House, and 
ex-Governor Charles E. Hughes while the chief 
executive at Albany. These, with scores of 
other able and earnest men in public life, have 
revealed the slumbering righteousness in the 
nation's heart, and have given it a voice. The 
voice, however, in many instances was that of 
Sinai rather than the Mount of Olives. The 
method of reform was by external legislation, 



42 World-Wide Bible Study 

by exaction, by the "Thou shalt not," the force 
of might rather than the persuasive and sov- 
ereign power of inner voluntary choice. The 
weakness of this system hes in its failure to 
produce principles of right-mindedness and in- 
dividual standards applicable to all occasions. 

We have discovered great corporations and 
companies transgressing the law and fattening 
upon the vacillation and moral blindness of 
politicians and officials. We have been shocked 
and shamed by the sight. We have haled the 
criminals to prisons, we have disbanded cor- 
porations and insurance companies; we have 
brandished the national ''big stick" above the 
heads of recreant public leaders. We have 
like Moses descended from the mountain, 
wrath fully breaking into pieces the tables of 
stone as he beheld the people worshiping the 
golden calf. We, too, like Moses have given 
commandments and enacted legislation. We 
have thrown forceful compulsion about the 
people, as the penalty of their idolatry. But 
the heart of the people, as in the days of Moses, 
is often hardened, because it is inherently un- 
changed; big business is still intrenched in co- 
ercion; its only fear is that of being found out. 



The Bible and Citizenship 43 

The present scramble for position and eco- 
nomic control is almost as fierce as ever, only- 
more careful. 

But now to one who listens intently for the 
voice of the people there comes the cry for a 
deeper reform, otherwise we could not have 
such wonderful works as those of the Laymen's 
Missionary enterprise, the awakening of church 
brotherhoods all over the land, the Student 
Volunteer Movement, the Bible study awaken- 
ing in the colleges, the Men and Religion cam- 
paign — as wide as the nation, — together with 
the no less distinctively religious movements 
for social betterment in America — campaigns 
engaging men regardless of nationality, station 
or creed. 

Through Politics to National Religious 
Faith. — If these movements are to be anything 
other than colossal moral, religious and social 
trusts, with religion as a dress, and not a dy- 
namic, the individual must he touched in the 
realm of his spirit life. He must be more than 
an opportunist in moral and social reform. 
Honesty must be something more than the best 
policy. It must be a part of a deeper strain of 
personal righteousness, gripping not only a few 



44 World-Wide Bible Study 

leaders at the summit of society, but holding 
also the individual units of that society, and 
that in a systematic fashion. 

Suppose, for example, that we should get the 
majority of the individuals in America to spend 
one-half hour daily reading the New Testa- 
ment, and to continue this reading for a single 
month. Do you not believe that we would se- 
cure a different product in our national awaken- 
ings? Do you not think it would change our 
attitude toward war? Would it not make 
the brotherhood of man something concrete, 
rather than a high-sounding phrase in the 
journals of self-absorbed social and ethical 
propagandists ? 

We need a new individualism in America. 
We need to enter the school which turns out 
men of independent dignity, of personality — 
men of thoughtful and devoted ambition. We 
need not so much a spirit of moral reform 
as a steady, sane process of moral and relig- 
ious education which will bring individuals to 
the principles of self-knowledge, self -reverence, 
and self-control. These principles which un- 
derlie the best in American civilization come 
from the Bible, where they are found purer 



The Bible and Citizenship 45 

than in any other literature. Shall we return to 
the Bible for their rediscovery ? 

Shall we form councils of astute leaders to 
consider how we can bring back the Bible to 
the common people so that they will depend 
upon it for the details of their daily living, as 
did our forefathers? We shall then replace 
the dogmatic literalness of the days of witch- 
craft and inquisition and superstition with a 
new and larger Biblical interpretation which 
reverent constructive scholarship and co-opera- 
ting science have afforded us. Attractive Bible 
study clubs, in place of ^endless whist parties 
for society; sane interpretation of the social 
principles of the New Testament on the street 
corners, in place of the wild denunciations of 
wealth by disgruntled and wild-eyed spell- 
binders; business and professional men confer- 
ring upon the politics of the Old Testament as 
they to-day confer upon the politics of their 
legislatures; courses of Bible study that will 
make the Bible real and enchanting to the 
average man, who at heart is always religious 
— a real nation-wide campaign for the Bible. 
This is needed, and it is surely coming. 

Hozv Shall American Citizens Become Inter- 



46 World-Wide Bible Study 

ested in the Bible F — Will the Bible appeal to 
modern men and women through the intro- 
spective processes of Saint Francis of Assisi, or 
through Savonarola's practise of piety? Will 
our busy, active, unrelaxing American be will- 
ing to "know" himself, as the old Greek phil- 
osopher admonished? I doubt it. We are far 
too much alive, too alert, too progressive. 
Everything in America is in motion, and the 
movement is as earnest as it is rapid. We are 
bent upon utilitarian and commercial action, 
and at present there seems to be no tendency to 
settle down to intellectual, or even to the higher 
religious educational studies. If martyrs in 
other days died for their inner principles, 
Americans to-day are cjuite willing to die in 
the cause of scientific and national progress. I 
stood upon the aviation field in Chicago when 
two of America's sons gave up their lives for 
the sake of a new invention. Strange as it might 
seem, the meet continued, and thousands of 
upturned faces remained to watch the circulat- 
ing aviators. It was natural to criticize the 
committee for heartlessness in not stopping the 
exhibition, yet the committee was in line with 
the spirit of the age, which does not count life 




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The Bible and Citizenship 47 

itself dear when progress and achievement are 
at stake. 

This most active tendency must be remem- 
bered when we appreciate that the average 
American does not care for the pacific, static 
doctrines of rehgion when these are expressed 
in traditional fashion by churchmen and re- 
ligious teachers. He admires, for a moment, 
a sainted soul as such an one may appear in- 
frequently in some quiet retreat, separated 
far from the noise and strife of tongues; but 
the average American is away in an instant on 
his old track of material prosperity and suc- 
cessful motion. He contemns leisure, and will 
work as long as he lives. Millionaire philan- 
thropists are not satisfied with wealth in 
America ; they wish to pile success upon victory 
by actually feeling their money pass out 
through their hands as they have felt it pass 
into their hands. With a few exceptions, we 
do not find men of wealth willing to spend 
their latter days in quietude; even their mod- 
ern pleasures are as strenuous and unrelaxing 
as is their life-work. 

The Bible w^hich attracts our American peo- 
ple to-day will be a useful book, and rich in 



48 World-Wide Bible Study 

life values. It will bear a message to the 
poverty of our great cities; it will touch with 
new suggestion the plowman and the rural 
artisan by its homely philosophy; it will be 
discovered as the handbook of economics, or 
the storybook of children, or the practical 
guide to modern business success, or the 
Baedeker of missionary and church enter- 
prises. In other words, the Bible must be 
presented concretely to men who are running 
to their workj to factory hands at noontime, 
to business men at dinners or conferences in 
the large cities, to laboring men on the street- 
corners after supper, to Sunday-school teach- 
ers who get out of the Sunday-school room 
into the home life of the children, to men and 
women generally as a book vital with human 
interests. 

Why not consider in a board of trade meet- 
ing the value of such Bible studies as are now 
being prepared by eminent scholars and eco- 
nomists like Professor Jeremiah W. Jenks, of 
Cornell, one of the world's first experts on 
money, immigration, and corporation prob- 
lems. Are not the moral problems of a city, 
of which the Bible treats, as closely connected 



The Bible and Citizenship 49 

with the city's progress, and, therefore, with 
the vital subjects for the board of trade, as 
are the problems of hygiene, of entertaining 
a convention, or of welcoming a returned trav- 
eler? 

The Bible must become individualized in 
the new life of our American commonwealths. 
It is now regarded too much as a product of 
an alien civilization and unfitted for our ad- 
vancing times. Who will help to give it a 
rightful place in American citizenship? The 
challenge comes to men of mind and broad 
knowledge and sympathetic hearts. How 
many men in America have ever given their 
lives for the promotion of the study of the 
Bible among the people? Yet, one of the most 
farsighted of our great men claimed that the 
man who took the Bible to his nation was more 
worthy of his people's gratitude than the man 
who warded off her enemies in time of war. 
And people will not be interested in the Bible 
until men are raised up to interest them in it. 
Heavy treatises and scientifically theological 
tomes will not be read by the American people 
in this day of transition in literature, when 
people demand their truth in pictures and read 



so World-Wide Bible Study 

their religion and history alike in the maga- 
zines and daily press. Preachers and teach- 
ers in a much needed teaching ministry must 
hear the call for the presentation of the Bible, 
so fascinating that it will allure the average 
man. Why not? Is not the Bible interesting, 
and based upon fundamental human problems ? 

To make Bible religion pleasant reading, 
as attractive for an evening at home or a Sun- 
day afternoon as the favorite magazine, for ex- 
ample, is not this an aim worth while and now 
imperative? The very fact that so few people 
have discovered the Bible should be a call to 
youth in our colleges, to business and public 
men, and to Christian workers to ally them- 
selves with this cause. 

Let us bring the Bible to the people as a re- 
minder of their own high purposes, as a hint of 
our nation's destiny. Let us all lend a hand by 
beginning to read it for ourselves, by forming 
little circles for its study and discussion in 
the home, in the schoolhouse, in the church, in 
the Young People's Societies and social gath- 
erings, and as a basis for discussion in the 
church prayer-meeting. How many books do 
we find in our modern libraries or upon our 



The Bible and Citizenship 51 

home book tables regarding the best way to 
study the Bible? The arrangement of popular 
(sometimes illustrated) lectures on the subject 
has been helpful, giving the people a sugges- 
tion of how, for instance, the story of Cain has 
a message for our modern criminal institutions, 
or how Solomon, with his questionable politics, 
affords a warning for our modern American 
statesmen. Would not such subjects open the 
eyes of certain people regarding the contents 
of the Christian Scriptures ? 

In all ways, and to the remotest part of our 
nation, let those men who are really in earn- 
est unite in the presentation of the Bible in 
the terms of our common national needs. If 
this Book laid the basis of our republic, if 
it has been to our people the guide Godward, 
shall we not be mindful of this fact and by 
every possible exercise keep alive this mem- 
ory in the life of the nation's children? Kip- 
ling was right : 

"The tumult and the shouting dies; 

The captains and the kings depart: 
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, 

An humble and a contrite heart. 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget — lest we forget! 



52 World-Wide Bible Study 

"If, drunk with sight of power, we loose 
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, 

Such boastings as the Gentiles use, 
Or lesser breeds without the law — 

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 

Lest we forget — lest we forget." 

Thus the Bible shall be forever inextricably 
associated with the soul of America's great- 
ness, with her hberty, and with her love. 



CHAPTER III 

THE BIBLE IN THE HOME 

A MONG the great institutions of any na- 
tion, such as the school, the state, the 
church and life work, the home is primarily 
important. It is, or should be, the center and 
the pivot around and upon which civilization 
turns. The home has always been in peril, but 
perhaps never more so than to-day. It is 
menaced by lightness of humor, by changing 
economic conditions, by lax social laws and 
responsibilities, by over-strenuous material 
emphasis, and, perhaps more than all, by a 
decadence in family religion. 

The home has the first and most strategic 
chance for life impression. Professor Caleb 
T. Winchester has defined a ''classic" as a book 
that a boy reads with interest between the ages 
of twelve and twenty-one, and never after 
forgets. The home is the place in which the 
current of boyhood is more or less perma- 
nently set. He reads spontaneously and ir- 

53 



54 World-Wide Bible Study 

regularly because he likes to read certain 
things. Charles Lamb is quoted as saying 
that his sister Mary had received the best pos- 
sible education in being early turned loose in 
a library of good old authors, and being left 
there to browse about. In youth memory and 
impulse are at their best. The sense of im- 
itation is strongest. Ruskin repeatedly af- 
firms that his real education was at home be- 
fore he was fifteen. He tells how the Bible 
was planted about the very roots of his char- 
acter through the tender, wise instruction of his 
mother. The heroism, the poetry, the imagi- 
native idealism which the Bible has brought to 
youth in the Bible stories and Bible songs of 
the home, have colored all the life and thought 
of the best human history. 

The home is the place where Bible truth 
most easily reaches the religious life. The 
will and the conscience are here accessible as 
never before. Mr. Moody used to say, "We 
might train them [our children] that they may 
be converted so early they can't tell when they 
were converted," or as Horace Bushnell said, 
"A child is to grow up a Christian and never 
know himself as being otherwise." Paul 



The Bible in the Home 55 

made a splendid code for home Bible study 
when he wrote to Timothy: "From a child 
thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which 
are able to make thee wise unto salvation, 
through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 

The home is, moreover, the nearest approxi- 
mation to a place where men and women se- 
cure leisure of mind. To be sure, many homes 
hardly suggest this, but there are times, Sun- 
day afternoons, periods of sickness and con- 
valescence, now and then a holiday, when we 
remember that life came into a new largeness 
through some high vision from a book or a 
friend, or an idea caught from some unac- 
countable source. The busiest of men have 
turned to their Bibles at such times to quench 
the thirst of their starved workaday souls. 
Suppose every holiday and every Sunday could 
be given in part (two hours, perhaps) to a 
reading of the Psalms, or the Gospel of John, 
or the Book of Proverbs with some care, a 
fair working knowledge of the Bible could 
thus be gained in a single year. I know a law- 
yer who reads through the Bible twice a year 
— most of this reading is accomplished on Sun- 
day at home. 



56 World-Wide Bible Study 

A chief reason for Bible ignorance and Bible 
inattention in the home is the lack of a way 
to go about it. I discovered a young man re- 
cently much discouraged because he could not 
become interested in the Bible. He had begun 
with the Book of Chronicles, and had been 
fairly swamped by the long names and unin- 
teresting historical data. 

There are certain means of home Bible 
study which have succeeded; there are other 
means which must be discovered if we are 
to keep up with our fathers in the knowledge 
of the Book of Life. 

Home Bible study, so far as children are 
concerned, has helped to develop the art of 
telling stories — Bible stories. While a story- 
teller, like a poet, is born, not made, it is pos- 
sible for any one to be interesting to young 
people as a narrator of some of the most cap- 
tivating events in history. The Bible and 
Homer have furnished many of the great stor- 
ies of the world. What fascination in the stor- 
ies of Samson, with touches of humor here 
and there, or the nomadic Abraham, or the 
exciting narrative of Gideon, or the plagues, 
or Elijah, or Jotham coming out of his moun- 




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The Bible in the Home 57 

tain fastnesses to scorn kings and their glory 
with his fables, or David and GoHath, pro- 
phetic of future victory for God and his peo- 
ple. Professor Richard G. Moulton has hinted 
at the wealth of suggestion in the story of 
Joseph : "As a picturesque background to the 
central personality there are glimpses of nomad 
shepherd life, of caravan merchant life, of 
gorgeous and stately Egypt. Dream lore adds 
shading to the picture, mysteries unveiling 
themselves only as they become fulfilled. Sud- 
den mutations of fortune appear — the com- 
monest inspiration of the story-teller; his fin- 
est finesse of complex situation is added where 
Joseph's brethren appear before him, recog- 
nized, but not recognizing; what the mere story- 
teller would call "playing" with the situation 
is here elaborated in what is more than play, 
as Joseph's contrived perplexities drive his 
brethren through turns of moral experience, 
changing the men who sold one brother for a 
slave into the men who will sacrifice themselves 
or their children to save another brother for 
their father's old age. Plot of story becomes 
Providence as Joseph reveals himself and 
makes note how in the past sin his brethren, 



58 World-Wide Bible Study 

instead of compassing his own destruction, 
were providing the future saviour for Egypt 
and the famished nations. The idyllic picture 
of the migration of Jacob and his family to 
the land of Goshen provides the romantic 
conclusion to the story." 

But to be able to present the stories inter- 
estingly several things are required, among 
which are some knowledge of the historical 
background or purpose of the narrative, an 
ability to choose and adapt to the needs of 
the youth, and the willingness not to insist al- 
ways upon the moral application — a story 
carries with it its own message. It is not a 
sermon, and is not therefore to be treated 
homiletically. It is to fascinate — to store the 
imagination, to lead to a love of the Bible. 
God will speak his own word to the one who 
listens with breathless attention. 

A careful selection of Biblical material to 
use with youth in the home is vital; not all 
Scripture is edifying or proper food for chil- 
dren. Paul said the Bible contained both 
''milk" and ''strong meat." We read that 
the ancient Jewish Church forbade the reading 
of the Book of Ezekiel to youth under thirty 



The Bible in the Home 59 

years of age. A Japanese Christian father 
asked me about the method of getting his 
young son to read the Bible. He had failed, 
he said, in his efforts. The young man stated 
that his father had started him on Paul's let- 
ter to the Romans. 

Nature lessons from the Bible are sure to 
attract children. A teacher who had been 
in Scotland and knew Scotch shepherds made 
an indelible impression upon my youthful mind 
when he described Jesus, the Good Shepherd. 
The words sheep, lambs, flock, shepherds, occur 
in at least 150 verses in the Gospels, represent- 
ing the attitude of God to his children. 

The Old Testament Bible stories seem to be 
the favorite ones with youth. In an analysis 
of 1,000 cases, as indicated in Dr. Dawson's 
study of ''Children's Interest in the Bible," 
it is found that up to eight years of age the 
New Testament stories seem most attractive, 
and subsequent to that age the interest in the 
Old Testament begins and continues up to the 
adolescent period. Some years ago (1901) 
Dr. A. B. Van Ormer, through the Element- 
ary Department of the Pennsylvania Sabbath 
School Association, also with the co-operation 



6o World-Wide Bible Study 

of the New Jersey Sunday School Association, 
sent out a questionnaire covering the element- 
ary years from four to twelve, inclusive. The 
results show quite a decided preference for 
Old Testament Bible stories, even among eight- 
year-old children. Of the children from four 
to eight, 53 per cent, of the boys and 59 per 
cent, of the girls expressed a preference for 
Old Testament stories, while of the children 
from eight to twelve, 65 per cent, of the boys 
and 59 per cent, of the girls chose the New 
Testament. 

The principle of success here, as in all Bible 
presentation, is to remember to begin with the 
known, the child's interest, his experimental 
knowledge. Another cardinal point to remem- 
ber is that it takes time and some study to 
achieve the ability to explain religion in story 
form. 

The Bible school has often failed with its 
teaching, not because it has been wrong or in- 
adequate, but because there has been no sym- 
pathetic or practical union between Bible teach- 
ing and Bible practise. The teacher may give 
good ideas one hour in one day in seven, but 
if the real guide to practise in the home for 



The Bible in the Home 6i 

the rest of the week knows or cares little about 
this teaching there is always a fair chance 
of failure in lasting impression. 

We need in America to-day closer co-opera- 
tion between the home and the church. Par- 
ents and teachers should come together not 
simply for acquaintance, but for mutual and 
common instruction as to Bible subjects taught 
to children, and the method of maintaining in- 
terest and securing permanent results in church 
and life. Moreover, the Bible teacher should 
follow the student into the home and into the 
day school. He should see that conditions 
are favorable for the real practical lodgment 
of his instruction in daily living, for Bible 
study is not for a worshipful hour merely; it 
is for life, for conduct, for business, for deep- 
ening the hold of Bible students upon the prob- 
lems of personality, and for human progress. 
To this end we would suggest conferences and 
meetings between parents and Bible teachers. 
Day school teachers might well be included at 
times, for mutual unity and knowledge of 
home life and aims are indispensable to all 
these classes of persons. Parents might well 
be invited to attend Bible teacher-training 



62 World-Wide Bible Stud^ 

classes, and pastors could profitably hold in- 
stitutes for the express high purpose of bring- 
ing together members of the home and Bible 
teachers and ministers. The discussion of such 
questions as the following would be both il- 
luminating and inspiring: 

How much time is given in the home to preparation for 
Bible classes and personal Bible study? 

What is the message of the Bible to the modern home? 

What have been your chief successes in Bible study? 

How can the Bible be made interesting, in the home, 
to parents? 

What is the relation, if any, between Bible study and 
prayer? 

What books have been most helpful to your Bible 
study? 

How can teachers and parents co-operate to best ad- 
vantage ? 

The Psalmist's words might well be writ- 
ten upon the doorposts of every home in the 
land. '^Thy word have I hid in mine heart, 
that I might not sin against thee." It is one 
of the best reasons ever given for committing 
to memory the Bible. It is, in fact, a chief 
reason for Bible study of any kind. 

The Bible which the average person really 
possesses came to him in childhood in memory 



The Bible in the Home 63 

texts. The new Christian Church in the Far 
East emphasizes memory work in religion in 
a most decided fashion. It is not uncommon 
to find young people capable of reciting many 
whole Psalms or entire chapters of the Bible. 
In Hongkong I found a young girl who had 
committed to memory the entire New Testa- 
ment. 

This learning of the Bible by rote, especially 
in childhood, has a double advantage — the in- 
fluence upon the mind of the beautiful classic 
words and style, and also the storing up by the 
spiritual nature of a world of religious reserve 
for days to come. The jeweled thoughts that 
shine on our later years lighting the paths of 
unexpected days, sounding gently on in last- 
ing memory with a music not all their own, 
were learned when life was at its spring and 
often at bedtime at our mother's knee. 

Perhaps no one has borne witness more of- 
ten to these unforgettable impressions of the 
Bible in early years than has John Ruskin, who 
said in this connection of his mother: "She 
established my soul in life." . . . 

*T have next with deeper gratitude," he says 
in Praeterita, "to chronicle what I owed to my 



64 World-Wide Bible Study 

mother for the resolutely consistent lessons 
which so exercised me in the Scriptures as to 
make every word of them familiar to my ear 
in habitual music — yet in that f amiharity rev- 
erenced, as transcending all thought, and or- 
daining all conduct." Ruskin explains that 
his lessons in Bible memorizing began as soon 
as he was able to read and never ceased until 
he entered Oxford. **My mother," he con- 
tinues, "forced me by steady, daily toil to learn 
long chapters of the Bible by heart: as well as 
to read it, every syllable through, aloud, hard 
names and all, from Genesis to the Apocalypse 
about once a year . . . I had to learn a 
few verses by heart, or repeat, to make sure I 
had not lost something of what was already 
known." And in a wonderful summary of the 
results of learning whole chapters by heart, 
Ruskin bears eminent witness to such early 
memory and reading of the Bible : 

"And truly though I have picked up the 
elements of a little further knowledge — in 
mathematics, meteorology, and the like in af- 
ter life, and owe not a little to the teaching 
of many people, this maternal installation of 
my mind in that property of chapters, I count 



The Bible in the Home 65 

very confidently the most precious, and, on the 
whole, the one essential part of all my educa- 
tion/' 

And although our own experience and the 
experience of the world join to make author- 
itative this testimony, and the value of teach- 
ing children the Bible in the home, these same 
children will go on filling their impressionable 
young minds with the colored comic supple- 
ments in Sunday newspapers, or with equally 
brainless ideas often published in so-called 
"Children's Books," if the parents do not exert 
themselves to make the Bible interesting to 
their young people in the home. The Ameri- 
can father must himself discover the Bible. 
He cannot afford personally to neglect it. If 
he really looks about he will find new ways of 
studying it, even in relation to the very busi- 
ness or public questions that engage so much 
of his life. He can become enthusiastic in 
finding the message of the Bible to modern 
life in such studies as those of Professor Ed- 
ward I. Bosworth, or Dr. Jeremiah W. Jenks, 
of Cornell. For Bible memorizing must be 
meaningful. Some one must know what is 
best for the memory of children, and how to 



66 World-Wide Bible Study 

get at it, also the life values of the Word of 
God. 

"This world's no blot for us, nor blank; 
It means intensely, and it means good: 
To find its meaning is my meat and drink." 

In addition to this reapprai semen t of the 
meaning of the Bible, on the part of the older 
members of the family, by the use of fresh, 
up-to-date studies, I would offer four sugges- 
tions for home memorizing of the Bible : 

I. Begin with beautiful, poetic prose, or with 
immortal Bible poetry. 

Matthew Arnold said that "in poetry, our 
race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer 
and surer stay." 

Such passages as the story of the Prodigal 
Son, the Psalms, the majestic and charm ful 
poetry of Deuteronomy, Revelation and Isaiah, 
will never wear out. H. Rider Haggard said 
the Book of Ecclesiastes thrills the soul like 
the voice of the pines heard in the midnight 
gale. The great prayers of the Bible, the 
Book of Proverbs, Jesus' sayings — "they are 
spirit and they are life" to those who would 
memorize the Bible. 



The Bible in the Home 67 

2. Establish a regular time for memorising 
Bible passages. 

Nothing worth while is acquired by chance. 
Have a time and rigidly adhere to it — a Sun- 
day morning, at bedtime, at breakfast, some 
convenient hour, and allozv no exceptions. It 
will become soon a regular and pleasant part 
of the day. Study how to avoid stereotyped 
formality. Review passages previously com- 
mitted. If possible, include the whole family 
in this exercise. Reading aloud the passages 
sometimes helps to fix the words. In India the 
students universally study aloud. Remember 
that no study is valuable that is not serious 
enough to be regular. 

3. Arrange, if possible, a line of study in re- 
lation to the Sunday-school. 

This will not only add interest to the at- 
tendance upon church Bible classes, but it will 
be a new chain to bind together the home and 
the church. The Sunday-school teacher can 
do little in the line of getting Bible truth 
memorized. There is insufficient time, and the 
teacher's knowledge of the child is too often 
inadequate. The Bible must be committed to 
memory in the home or never. 



68 World-Wide Bible Study 

4. Connect the Bible memorised with life. 

While the memory of a child will hold in 
fee simple, so to speak, a body of Bible truth 
to be fully understood when called forth by 
later knowledge and experience, there is much 
gain in establishing in the minds of children 
a living relation between passages learned and 
everyday life. Young people need setting, 
background, tangibility, objects upon which to 
hang their truth. It helps to talk over the 
Bible passage in advance of memory work. 
Let different members of the family tell 
it in their own language. Paraphrasing is a 
highly effective exercise to establish clear 
views of Bible material; especially ask why 
this passage is to be memorized; what con- 
nection, if any, does it have with school or 
business engagements, or choosing a life work, 
or home behavior? The Bible thus vitalized 
and visualized will be linked not with memory 
exercises only; it will also be joined to life; 
and the whole aim of Bible study — which is 
to bring together, in ennobling conduct, God, 
man, and human living — will be advanced. 



CHAPTER IV 

BUSINESS MEN AND THE BIBLE 

JV/l R. EDISON has defined American genius 
as consisting of *'two per cent, of in- 
spiration and ninety-eight of perspiration." 

A man whose genius could be thus described 
is usually lauded as a successful member of 
modern society — successful because he is ef- 
fective in business, or effective in competitive 
public enterprise requiring ingenuity and zeal. 

But the gospel of efficiency may be the means 
of depriving the modern business man of the 
very finest prizes of life, namely, contentment 
and the power to comprehend the real mean- 
ing of existence. Our cities are filled with 
men who have succeeded materially in their 
calling, but we search often despairingly for 
great leaders among business men — leaders 
who "see life steadily and see it whole," — 
who have not only gained property but perspec- 
tive, who have not only succeeded in doing, 
but in addition have made a success of being 

69 



70 World-Wide Bible Study 

— who possess, with great estates, great souls. 
Many a community tolerates successful men 
whom it does not love or need and whom it 
would quite gladly dispense with. Too often 
the man of high commercial rank is of low 
mental and moral quality. 

Business may need watchful and powerful 
regulations through legislative high forces. 
Social conditions require constant study and 
ever expanding plans of amelioration, but our 
modern society cries out for business men who 
stand with high and successful honor at its 
summit, who are capable of matching their 
activity with their contemplation, who know 
not only their particular specialism, but also 
the God of all specialities, and the place their 
success should fill in His plan. 

The instrument through which such pre- 
cious knowledge is coming among many busi- 
ness men of our day is the Bible. Business 
men are returning to the "book our mothers 
read," to find in it inspiration for a new and 
finer idealism, to discern the world of the spirit 
which lies, for him who would seek it earnestly, 
not far from the world of the flesh. 

And such men who know only the Bible 



Business Men and the Bible 71 

of their Sunday-school days are finding a new 
approach to the Word of God — a new atti- 
tude rising out of sensible modern scholarship 
and the needs of a new time. They are find- 
ing it possible to study the Bible as they would 
study other hterature, with intelligent and sci- 
entific method, with unprejudiced mind, and 
with the idea of finding out its truth relative 
not merely to some early century, but to our 
own times. 

Adult Bible classes in the church are tak- 
ing on new life. Last year the records show 
more than 400,000 men enrolled in Bible 
classes organized and unorganized in Ameri- 
can churches. Ninety-seven thousand two 
hundred and eleven men were enrolled in the 
Bible classes of the Young Men's Christian 
Associations of the United States and Canada. 
Last winter a Bible class of business men in 
New York studied and discussed the Bible with 
such topics in mind as the following: 

The Statesmanship of Moses as Adapted to Modern 

Public Life. 
Amos as a Reformer. 
What Was Jesus' Attitude to Money — To Pleasure— To 

Crime? 



72 World-Wide Bible Study 

Some of the sessions of the class were trips 
of investigation to the poor districts of the 
city. The principles of Christianity were taken, 
not theoretically, hut practically. The rehgion 
of the Bible was not a fine thing for one day 
in seven; it was a working theorem — a gos- 
pel leading to immediate serviceableness — a 
program of vital utilitarianism, a realized ideal- 
ism. 

There are two distinct and sufficient reasons 
for the serious study of the Bible by the mod- 
ern business man. First, because he cannot 
afford to get on without such study, and, sec- 
ond, because he possesses the unique ability to 
present and to adapt the Bible's message to 
men of his time. 

The Bible's Message to the Business Man 
We can hardly overestimate the value of 
the Bible to men of business in their struggles 
and sorrows and disappointments as an indis- 
pensable and personal help in time of trouble. 
In Stanley's biography "In Darkest Africa," 
we read: 

"Constrained at the darkest hour to humbly confess 
that without God's aid I was helpless, I vowed a vow 
in the forest's solitude that I would confess his help be- 




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Business Men and the Bible 73 

fore men. A silence as of death was around about me. 
In this physical and mental distress alone, I besought 
God to give me back my companions, whose fate was 
a mystery. Before turning in for the night, I resumed 
my reading of the Bible as usual. I had already read 
the book through from beginning to end, and was now 
in Deuteronomy for the second reading. I came to the 
verses wherein Moses exhorts Joshua in those fine lines, 
'Be strong, and of good courage, fear not, nor be 
afraid of them; for the Lord thy God, he it is that 
doth go with thee ; he will not fail thee nor forsake 
thee.' It encouraged me to go on and be confident." 

The modern business man, whether a church- 
man or not, needs the solace of the Bible. He 
is subjected to a strain of body and mind and 
spirit which probably no other class of men 
experience to a like degree. He stands upon 
the firing line of our new and rapidly expand- 
ing material civilization. He knows the sud- 
den disaster, calamity, and the terrific risks, 
the clash of antagonistic interests, the unsur- 
mountable obstacles, the treachery of alleged 
friends, the rapidly shifting and ominous con- 
dition of modern competitive struggle. The 
business man fairly sleeps in his armor. His 
face is carved by the lines of care and busi- 
ness stress. His hair is silvered before its time 
through the apparition of fortunes lost or won 



74 World-Wide Bible Study 

— the impact upon his spirit of the ^'sturin and 
drang" of incessant business warfare. 

Is it any wonder that Lincoln turned to the 
Bible and read it more than any other book 
during the storm-tossed days of the Civil War ? 
A friend of mine occupied a steamer chair 
on a recent transatlantic voyage by the side 
of one of our foremost men in public life. 
This public man was seen reading his Bible 
each morning. After several days had passed 
my friend inquired what he found of interest 
in the book. He replied that it was his daily 
habit to read it, since it helped to allay the 
vexations of life's busy hours; it assisted him 
in securing calm and balance when confusion 
reigned about him; it lent him patience — the 
power to wait. On his month's trip to Europe 
he had read the Psalms and the Gospel of John 
and the Gospel of Luke. He added, "It is a 
great book, the Bible." 

A business man in one of our American 
cities, whose moments are so valuable that one 
is rarely able to secure through his secretary 
more than a ten-minute interview, takes a half 
hour each morning, in the private room which 
he has fitted up in his home on the top floor, 



Business Men and the Bible 75 

for the uninterrupted reading of a Scriptural 
passage and thought thereon. He said pub- 
Hcly, not long ago, that this habit was the chief 
reason for any real power and success in his 
life. 

The Bible belongs to the business man by 
right of his need. He needs it for dynamic 
and self-control. He takes it for calm and 
unfaltering trust while he walks often in the 
midst of his vast adventures: he takes it for 
good cheer and unquenchable hope : he takes 
it for songs in the night in his defeat and grief : 
he takes it for assurance that God always cares 
for his sons in their manly brave fightings. 
Many a business man is coming from the Book 
of Power to-day with the Psalmist's words on 
his lips: 

"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the good- 
ness of Jehovah 
In the land of the living." 

The Business Man's Contribution 
TO THE Bible 

Moreover, in the interpretation of Bible 
meanings, and in the application of these mean- 
ings to the questions of to-day, the man who 
knows the business life of our times is indis- 



76 World-Wide Bible Study 

pensable. He may not be familiar with the 
historical, the scholarly, or the critical re- 
searches of Bible study, but he knows life, 
and the Bible is a Book for life — it grew out 
of life, its message is primarily for men in the 
life of the world. This complex changing 
world of the twentieth century cannot be fully 
understood or dealt with by men of the cloister 
or in halls of learning. A Biblical scholar may 
know his subject, but he must also know its 
relation to the men of to-day, men as they 
really are, if he is to bring the Bible message 
forcibly to them. 

It is the golden age of laymen: it is the 
time when the business man, who knows the 
times and the tide of modern commercial life, 
is needed to convert the Bible from a far-off 
magical relic of the sanctuary or library into 
a guide for practical men amid their fierce 
earth struggles in an age of unparalleled na- 
tional progress. 

Carlyle said that the hell which the men 
of his time really dreaded was that of "not 
making money." It might seem that some 
such word is true to-day to a man who lives 
apart in his study or in the past as Carlyle 



Business Men and the Bible 77 

did. But the business man knows that this 
is not true — that below money and the things 
money commands there is stirring strongly a 
new demand for squareness, for righteousness, 
that the "system" is not always representa- 
tive of personal motives and ideals, and that 
it is not true that, 

"Evil has won in the horrid feud of ages with the 
throne," 

that 

"Evil stands on the neck of good and rules the world 
alone." 

And this knowledge, born of intimate ex- 
perience with life itself, is the instrument by 
which business men are to help make this 
Bible real to our age. They will not wait until 
scholars settle all the mooted controversies of 
theology. For two thousand years the creeds 
of men have been in flux and change, and no 
body of scholars outside of the stream of life 
have yet been able to fully express the moral, 
the social or religious consciousness of men 
To-day the business layman is beginning to 
present his message — his interpretation of the 
Bible and that with a courage and zeal like the 



78 World-Wide Bible Study 

crusaders. He is demanding a Bible that has 
relation to society — truth that does not stand 
alone in the books of the medieval churchmen, 
but in relation to everything practical and vital 
in the world to-day. Such men I met on ships 
in the Orient, paying their own expenses 
around the world to study missions and the 
sane application of money to religious enter- 
prises of the nations. I see them in the per- 
son of such a man as that prominent and influ- 
ential banker in the city of Houston who for 
years has left his friends and summer home 
each Sunday to go up to the city to teach a 
Bible class of men, and to discuss the way to 
make religion match practise in business life. 

These sensible business men are the heralds 
of the new Bible Revival. They will never be 
satisfied with an "after office hours" religion. 
They will be more and more insistent to read 
their Bible for themselves in the light of con- 
victions, born of experience. They will never 
believe that external restraints and legislative 
exactions will bring in the Kingdom of God. 
They are learning from the New Testament 
itself that as Sabatier said, Jesus did not de- 
scribe himself as a philosopher, but as a physi- 



Business Men and the Bible 79 

cian. They are learning that the field is the 
world, that the good seed is the children of 
the Kingdom, which like all good seed is char- 
acterized by growth, productiveness and vital- 
ity. 

It is the fascinating strategic task of busi- 
ness men to bring the Bible home to life itself, 
to first find its message themselves, to think it 
through in its implication to practise, then to 
go forth, not simply to the house of prayer, but 
to the house of business where await the mul- 
titudes ready to sit at the feet of one who has 
really seen the Father and "tasted of the pow- 
ers of the world to come." 

And when the business man becomes thor- 
oughly aroused to the Bible and its message to 
business, industrial and social life, he will real- 
ize what Jesus meant by saying "for their 
sakes I sanctify myself." In bringing the light 
of the gospel message to his time he will find 
it flooding his own heart, as Dr. Francis Pea- 
body has beautifully expressed the message of 
the Bible to society: 

"One who embarks on the current of Bible story 
floats down through political changes, national prob- 
lems, social reforms, the sins and repentance of Israel, 



8o World-Wide Bible Study 

the needs and hopes of the Gentile world, until at last 
the stream deepens and broadens, until the traveler 
sees before him the distant spires of the City of God, 
rising beyond the frontier of the perfect social world.'" 

Such vision-splendid is the crowning objec- 
tive of the message of the Bible to the business 
man. 



CHAPTER V 

AMERICAN COLLEGE MEN DISCOVERING THE 
BIBLE 

DUDYARD KIPLING, in speaking to the 
students of McGill University not long 
ago, told them that they were going out into 
a time when there would seem to confront 
them an organized conspiracy to make them 
believe that wealth for wealth's sake w^as the 
end and aim of life. "But," said he, ''sooner 
or later you will find a man who is not con- 
trolled by money — he knows how to use money 
for ideals that ultimately satisfy. That man 
will never go in fear of any antagonist, for he 
has seen the things which are worth while." 

It is not easy, however, for the college man 
to secure and hold ideals of the eternally worth 
while. The very air of the times is thick with 
material achievement. The courses which he 
selects are too often intended to make bread- 
winners rather than men of leadership and 
breadth of culture. He finds it easier to be- 

8i 



82 World-Wide Bible Study 

come an expert in his profession than to learn 
to see deeply enough into life to appreciate the 
object of his specialization. He often lacks the 
ability to see large things large and small things 
small. If he makes athletics his god, it is not 
because he is wanting in enthusiasm, but rather 
in proper perspective. His sense of proportion 
is awry. He must find some influence that will 
act as a corrective while he is yet in college, or 
his career is too frequently swallowed up in a 
battle of dollars, with no following of the 
"gleam" of a larger Hope. 

A great counteracting movement has arisen, 
— it is the movement for the discovery of the 
Bible. And it is a comparatively recent de- 
velopment in college life. Ten years ago there 
were hardly 5,000 college men in all the institu- 
tions of North America who were studying 
the Christian Scriptures systematically and with 
intelligent plan. These men who were inter- 
ested were usually Christian men whose de- 
votional habits had been formed in the home 
before college days. In short, ten years ago 
there was no general knowledge among stu- 
dents of a method of Bible study consonant 
with their educational atmosphere. Few pro- 



College Men and the Bible 83 

fessors were interested, and the mention of 
a Bible class in a club house or fraternity 
chapter house or in the training section of 
an athletic department was unheard of. 

The revolution in sentiment in viewing the 
Bible may be told in a glance by the following 
facts reported from institutions of higher learn- 
ing during the college year of 1909- 19 10: 

28,562 men were reported by 490 institutions as having 

attended Bible classes for two months or more. 
9,089 men followed habits of daily Bible study in 338 

institutions. 
6,156 non-Christian men were reported in Bible classes 

in 302 institutions. 
5,061 fraternity men were reported in 120 institutions. 
2,308 students were used to lead Bible groups in 306 

institutions. 
2,272 of these leaders were in attendance at 305 normal 

classes in 139 institutions. 
800 faculty men co-operated in the Bible study work in 

295 institutions. 
1,252 men were led into the Christian life through Bible 

classes in loi institutions. 
33.657 student Bible study text-books were purchased. 
185 Bible study reference libraries were available in 

142 institutions. 

That the busiest and most popular students 
have time for Bible study is evidenced by the 
number of men holding prominent positions 



84 World-Wide Bible Study 

in college life who were in Bible classes last 
year. These included: 

1,522 members of Varsity football teams. 

1,454 members of college glee clubs. 

653 editors of college papers. 

1,402 members of Varsity baseball teams. 

755 class presidents. 

983 prize and scholarship men. 

712 members of Varsity basket-ball teams. 

92 members of Varsity crews. 

1,053 members of Varsity track teams. 

It is interesting to note that in the eighteen 
national movements comprising the World's 
Student Christian Federation over 80,000 stu- 
dents were studying the Bible in 191 1 in vol- 
untary Bible classes. 

This change of attitude has been sweeping, 
and in many colleges and universities it has 
been almost complete. There are still some 
institutions, however, in which the evolution 
of the Bible from unpopularity to popularity 
is still progressing. Indeed, there must al- 
ways be something of this changing of senti- 
ment in a community which is not fixed, but 
which receives additions of students and suf- 
fers losses of students with every year. The 
note of apology for the Bible, however, is 






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College Men and the Bible 85 

changing to one of loyalty and interest. With 
the development of new and fitting courses of 
study and the broadening of viewpoint, with 
the help of the professors and the church and 
the home, the day is near when the influential 
majority of North American students will be 
studying the Bible with intelligence, with en- 
thusiasm, and with untold profit. 

What are some of the methods through 
which the men who have heretofore treated 
the Bible indifferently are now expending time 
and hard work to organize it, lead classes, 
and follow its study with regular habits? 

A first principle of the success of Bible study 
in college has been the belief that all kinds of 
students would be interested in some phase of 
Bible study. For example, there were in 
19 10- 1 1 5,061 Greek letter fraternity men at- 
tending these student classes; the majority of 
these men were enrolled in groups in the chap- 
ter houses. 

To start their interest a few men, the lead- 
ers, would be called together to consider the 
matter. Usually two or three representative 
students would be asked from each chapter 
house. The courses of study and the reference 



86 World-Wide Bible Study 

books would be on a table for examination. 
The method of study, the kind of discussion, 
the naturalness and sanity of the plan, would 
be presented by some one who had been in 
touch with such classes elsewhere. Then every 
student in the room would be asked to express 
himself as to his idea of the plan, and espe- 
cially to state if he would stand for the organi- 
zation of a group in his fraternity house. 
Three or four students are enough to begin 
with; these meet in one of the men's rooms 
after supper on a week-day or on Sunday, 
the time being an adjustable matter, deter- 
mined by the convenience of the group mem- 
bers. 

At such organization meetings it is usually 
found that the majority of the students are 
interested enough to appoint a committee to 
assist in securing a professor, or a clergyman, 
or a strong alumnus in the town, to teach and 
to assist in getting the work started in the va- 
rious chapter houses. Many men enter the 
classes at first simply for the educational values 
of the Bible. They feel densely ignorant of 
the main facts of Biblical historv. One stu- 
dent told me that in an answer to a test ques- 



College Men and the Bible 87 

tion in a class in college a friend of his had 
defined Sodom as the wife of Gomorrah. It 
humiliated him to think of the possibilities 
of making a like revelation of his own Bible 
ignorance. 

This may seem a low plane upon which 
to enter a Bible class. But to a spiritu- 
ally indifferent man the opportunity to get 
knowledge of the contents of a book which no 
less a man than John Richard Green, the Eng- 
lish historian, called the ''standard for Eng- 
lish," is a real attraction. Indeed, many men 
feel that this first knowledge of the facts is 
both scientific and preparatory to any further 
profit. A Chinese student in Hongkong told 
me that he had been studying the Bible a year. 
After six months of further study he said that 
he hoped to be in position to decide as to 
accepting Christianity. He would then know 
"what Christianity was about." Too often 
we ask men to decide first, then expect them 
to find out later why or what they have done ; 
and do they always find out? And does de- 
cision to be a Christian, without knowledge of 
Jesus' conception of a Christian disciple, carry 
much assurance of a fruitful Christian career? 



88 World-Wide Bible Study 

It is my growing conviction that we can se- 
cure the allegiance of almost any class of men 
to Bible study, without regard to creed or 
race, if we approach them in a frank, broad- 
minded fashion and ask them to come together 
to obtain the facts. A college graduate of my 
acquaintance is proving this fact with the most 
indifferent class of men one could imagine in 
New York City, and is now leading three 
groups each week numbering fifteen men 
apiece. This graduate told me that only one 
man in his three classes was a Protestant when 
he started; eight were Jews, three were Ori- 
entals, two were alleged agnostics, three were 
socialists (politically and religiously), four 
W'Cre Catholic young men, and the rest were 
more or less noncommittal. Fifteen of these 
men have already been enlisted in practical 
service in missions connected with the 
churches. One man said recently : ''I never 
dreamed that Christianity was like this." Ex- 
perience shows that the application of these 
•facts to personal life and to institutional life 
will follow quite easily. Not alone in Pales- 
tine have men's hearts burned within them as 
they have talked with Jesus by the way. 



College Men and the Bible 89 

The college teacher was once the guide for 
religious and moral instruction as well as the 
educator of the mind. The multiplicity of 
college duties in rapidly growing institutions, 
involving complex curricula and vastly in- 
creased executive and administrative duties, 
have tended to make the college professor an 
expert upon a subject rather than a teacher of 
men. But a change is evident here, and this 
student Bible movement which enlisted in 
1 9 10 eight hundred college professors in class 
teaching and training of teachers, and in other 
forms of Bible activity, is helping to bring the 
instructor closer to the student through friendly 
fellowship and practical discussion. Mean- 
while the teacher is bringing both quality, effi- 
ciency, dignity, and vitality to this cause of the 
Bible in the college environment. 

The secret of successful Bible study any- 
where exists not wholly In the number or kind 
of persons enrolled In classes, but In the per- 
sons who are Induced to continue their study 
until the Bible really becomes to them a vital 
book. "If ye abide in my word," said Jesus, 
"then are ye truly my disciples." 

The arrangement of Bible lectures at fre- 



90 World-Wide Bible Study 

quent intervals during the year has proved a 
means of reminder and renewal of attention to 
the Bible. At Columbia University a series 
of Bible addresses given about once a month 
helped to make the voluntary Bible work the 
most successful in years at that institution. 
Professor Jeremiah W. Jenks was engaged to 
speak to the students upon the message of 
the Bible to social and political questions. 
Robert E. Speer presented the topic **The Bible 
and the Church." Other subjects taken by 
speakers were **The Bible and Education," 
"The Relation of the Bible and Ethics," and 
*'World-Wide Bible Study." Opportunity was 
given at the close of the lectures for questions, 
and personal interviews were held with the 
speakers after the conferences. 

A training class for teachers has become 
almost indispensable to the success of college 
Bible classes. This class is usually held weekly 
and the teachers have the opportunity to get 
in advance a clear knowledge of the material 
they are to present, as well as being afforded 
a chance for a free discussion of the experience 
in the last week's class. 

The chief means of retaining interest in 



College Men and the Bible 91 

Bible classes has proved to be a teacher with 
regular Bible study habits, a teacher who knows 
and has enthusiasm for the Bible. The chief 
method to make the Bible interesting is not 
a method, but a man. 



CHAPTER VI 

ESSENTIALS IN BIBLE STUDY 

T N A PERIOD when so many exercises 
which are hardly worthy of such dignity 
are styled Bible study, it may be helpful to con- 
sider some of the inevitable accompaniments 
of a profitable study of the Bible. It is often 
necessary to remember that Bible study is not 
merely signing an enrolment card; it is not 
attending a lecture in which the preacher or 
lecturer contributes a sermonette upon a Bible 
passage; it is not entering into a weekly dis- 
cussion of social, political or even theological 
themes; it is not reading excellent books on 
Bible subjects ; it is not a series of evangelistic 
meetings; it is not attending Bible confer- 
ences and it is not discussing plans in Bible 
institutes. 

Bible study may be stimulated by many of 
the above exercises. It should be closely as- 
sociated with all of these functions. But Bible 
92 



College Men and the Bible 93 

study, if it is genuine and worth while, usu- 
ally manifests itself in distinctive and definite 
evidences. 

Real Bible Study Leads to Service 

A few years ago a somewhat skeptical busi- 
ness man said to me: "This idea of Bible 
study is too vague. It is not practical enough 
for me. I want something that brings tangi- 
ble results." 

Although I realized at the time that this 
man's opinion was inadequate, because he had 
not investigated the subject closely, I was still 
obliged to admit, to myself at least, that too 
often the study of the Bible lacks definite touch 
with life. A Christian worker or Bible teacher 
must continually ask himself: What is the 
definite result of my Bible study class? Is it 
producing a change in the lives of the indi- 
vidual members? Is the community being 
benefited in any way? 

The college Christian Associations are be- 
coming interested in this serviceable side of 
Bible study. The Bible group is becoming 
more and more a means to an end, rather than 
an end in itself. The following quotation from 



94 World-Wide Bible Study 

a leader of Bible work in Princeton is illu- 
minating : 

"The ^Extension Work* of the Bible groups 
may now be considered a fixed feature of the 
Princeton Bible Group program. At least 
twenty groups have been doing more or less 
effective work in Princeton, in the surround- 
ing country settlements, in Trenton and in 
New York. Four or five groups in Trenton 
and two in New York City have done work 
in connection with settlement houses, the Sal- 
vation Army and the Young Men's Christian 
Association, visiting the sick and disabled, 
conducting boys' clubs and Sunday-school 
classes, and arranging for lectures and enter- 
tainments. 

"At least six new rural communities have 
been visited regularly by the men, and lectures 
by members of the faculty, as well as enter- 
tainments by the students, have made it possi- 
ble to form boys' clubs of from fifteen to 
twenty boys in each place. These clubs are 
under the constant direction of the Bible group 
men who are now training the members for 
a track meet to be held under the auspices of 
the Philadelphian Society, on Brokaw Field, at 



College Men and the Bible 95 

Princeton. About fifteen clubs expect to en- 
ter the meet, which presents both * junior' and 
^senior' events, and for which both club and 
individual prizes are to be offered. 

*'Schoolhouses have been found to be good 
centers for this work in the purely rural dis- 
tricts. 

**This plan has several unique merits. It 
unites the faculty and students in a common 
Christian work. It enlists the energies of 
more men than where individuals alone are 
made responsible. It brings the University in 
touch with its environment, and trains the 
members of the University body in some of 
the principles of good citizenship. It does for 
these rural communities what they are not able 
to do for themselves and thus quickens their 
life without making them dependent in things 
which they themselves should undertake. It 
is awakening the students' interest in the rural 
problems of our country. Finally, it keeps the 
Bible group from becoming theoretical and 
holds it together by means of work in a way 
that mere study never does. Men who would 
not otherwise maintain interest are also kept 
in touch with Bible study." 



96 World-Wide Bible Study 

A Conquering Optimism 

Emerson said: **We judge a man's wis- 
dom by his hope." A common cause of fail- 
ure in Christian enterprise comes through dis- 
illusionment and the loss of that eternal hope 
which Wordsworth calls 

"The paramount duty which heaven lays 
For its own honor, on man's suffering heart." 

The gospel of courageous hope is the gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ and the gospel of the Bible. 
We are not only saved by hope, but we save 
others by our hopefulness and by our inex- 
tinguishable optimism. No pessimist ever led 
a movement anywhere except into the ground. 
Pessimism is like a river which loses itself in 
the sand. The man who has nothing to offer 
but an argument of despair should do one of 
two things — resign or begin to study the Bible. 

A regular Bible study habit develops an 
optimistic spirit by perpetually reminding us 
of the things really worth while. Such a hope 
constantly corrects our perspective by reveal- 
ing to us that even though we are failing to 
accomplish many of the things we would like 
to accomplish, still the opportunity remains for 



■^lv''5'»=;_..-K.«._ 



College Men and the Bible 97 

focusing our effort upon one or two important 
things. Bible study brings good cheer by keep- 
ing the heart constantly thrilled with a sense 
of mission. Count the number of times in 
the Gospel of John that Jesus reiterates His 
conviction that the Father has ''sent" Him into 
the world for an insistent purpose. Thus our 
personal and class Bible study should add to 
our reserve of Christian optimism. 

Bible Study and Spiritual Growth 

It is almost trite to remark that the church 
is continually in need of emphasis upon a pro- 
found renewal of the inner life, which inevit- 
ably results from personal and habitual atten- 
tion to Bible study and prayer. It will be un- 
fortunate for the church, however, if this truth 
becomes so commonplace as to be unheeded. 

I found that the keen, thoughtful Christian 
leaders of the East considered our American 
Christianity as indeed unique in organizing 
genius, unusual building campaigns, effective 
conventions and massive budgets. These 
same workers also expressed repeatedly the 
hope that America would not lose her life of 
the spirit through her tremendous success in 



98 World-Wide Bible Study 

material equipment and organizational devel- 
opment. 

Bible study has been and continues to be 
our anchorage. From it should result meas- 
ured and balanced judgment for our present 
great opportunities. Quality rather than quan- 
tity; how deep, how genuine, how real is the 
life of our Christian toilers, rather than **how 
many have we upon our rolls?" — this is the 
standard it will lead us to adopt. Bible study 
must give to our membership what Wesley 
used to call **A genius for Godliness." It 
must be constantly at hand to correct our vis- 
ion and steady our hearts. 

An educated Indian said to me: "I have 
been in America several times, but your life 
confuses me. I never seem to get peace of 
mood there." 

I am sure that as I look back upon my own 
experience as a pastor, I am expressing one 
of our greatest problems when I say that every 
Christian minister or worker must fight for 
time and opportunity for habitual Bible study. 
It costs to form this habit. It can neither be 
inaugurated nor maintained without moral 
courage and severe individual sacrifice. Yet it 



College Men and the Bible 99 

is the habit of Bible study which saves the 
Christian's life. An occasional meal is agree- 
able and helpful, but it will never keep a man 
from starving. Likewise it is the steady Bible 
study diet which saves and develops the spirit- 
ual hfe. 

A recent investigation concerning the results 
of Bible study brought to me convincing proof 
of the power of the Bible in the life of the 
spirit. 

I append a few testimonies of men who have 
''fought their doubts and gathered strength" 
through the overcoming influence of the Word 
of God. 

Thus an Eastern college man says : "The 
influence of the habit of daily Bible study has 
been a great help to me in keeping the high 
ideals and the strict principles of my early 
Christian training in spite of the tendency of 
the modern philosophical teaching to discredit 
much of the Bible story." 

A college man in the Middle West testifies: 
"When I think back to my decision to enter 
Christian work as a lifework, I realize that 
it was very probably due to this habit of daily 
Bible study more than to anything else that 



loo World-Wide Bible Study 

I was led to such a decision. Since enter- 
ing the work nothing has meant so much to 
me in the way of inspiration and the strength- 
ening of purpose as has this habit. I have 
come to the point where I am afraid to en- 
ter a day's work without first having spent 
time with God and the Bible." 

A medical student in New England writes : 
"From my personal experience I can testify to 
the tremendous value of daily Bible study. 
It has been the means of keeping my ideals 
fixed upon the real things of Hfe. I note an 
immediate relationship between the depth of 
my spiritual life and the efficiency of my 
Morning Watch. A lack of reality in the 
Morning Watch is sure to be followed im- 
mediately by a decrease in religious faith that 
influences the whole sphere of my life. The 
habit of keeping the Morning Watch, formed 
four years ago, I count my strongest asset. 
During the day at the medical school there is 
little to stimulate one's thoughts toward re- 
ligious matters. I like, therefore, at the be- 
gining of each day to get into touch with the 
Great Physician." 

A preponderating volume of testimony 



College Men and the Bible loi 

comes in regard to the relation of this Bible 
study to daily living. This is the word from 
a college man in Ohio: "I have been study- 
ing Proverbs (taking a chapter a day) and 
it seems that each day's lesson has some bear- 
ing on the incidents of the day. I never be- 
fore knew how closely the teachings could be 
applied if one makes it a point to look for the 
application." 

Another college man writes : '^Individual 
Bible study has helped me to make my daily 
life nearer what I knew it ought to be. It 
has decreased my confidence in myself and in- 
creased my faith in God." 

A Pennsylvania student says : "The influ- 
ence of the habit of daily Bible study has been 
a great help to me in keeping the high ideals 
and the strict principles of my early Christian 
training." 

An Iowa man writes : "The habit of daily 
Bible study has broadened, deepened, and 
strengthened my Christian life." 

This testimony is from a man in the Far 
West: "I could not go about my daily tasks 
without the help that I receive from the habit 
of daily Bible study. I have tried it and I 



I02 World-Wide Bible Study 

know. I am not exaggerating when I say 
that the Morning Watch has meant more to 
my life than anything that has ever come into 
it." 

An Ohio college man testifies: "I have for 
a number of years made it a rule to study 
the Bible daily. Life does not go right with- 
out it." 

The following word is from a student in 
Indiana: "I have found that the observance 
of morning Bible study has given me a founda- 
tion for the day's work that cannot be ob- 
tained in any other way." 

A Southern college man writes: "I con- 
sider daily Bible study a balancing force in 
one's life. A few minutes spent with the Bible 
will counteract all of the evil influences of a 
day. Among my associates, those who read 
the Bible most seem to have the least difHculty 
in overcoming temptations." 

This word comes from a man in the Middle 
West: **I have for the last five years been 
engaged in systematic daily Bible study and 
in keeping the Morning Watch. It has made 
me a more careful student, a better business 
man, and a far more consistent Christian." 



College Men and the Bible 103 

These truly are indubitable evidences of the 
truth that Bible study may become an indis- 
pensable factor in everyday life. It is an op- 
portune time to confront our plans with the 
question: Are these plans intended to con- 
duct men into the rnner meaning of the words 
of Jesus, which words are "spirit" and "life"? 



CHAPTER VII 



THE BIBLE TEACHER 



T HE teacher of the Bible is one of the great 
moral and religious forces of our times. 
Indeed, he is as great as he conceives himself 
to be. His accomplishments, despite poor 
equipment, indifference, and sometimes oppo- 
sition, have been impressive. A notable public 
man told me recently that of all the influences 
which had contributed to his success, he deemed 
most potent the early associations connected 
with a Bible class in a Sunday-school taught 
by a genuine Christian woman. There were 
two things he said this woman had accom- 
plished for him. She had incarnated the teach- 
ing of the Bible in her personal interest, and 
by her emphasis upon regular Bible study had 
given him an incentive for a life-long habit 
of Bible reading. Many a man would confess 
his feeling toward his early Bible teacher to 
be that with which Longfellow characterized 
104 



The Bible Teacher 105 

the Elder of Plymouth, "The hill that was 
nearest Heaven." 

Modern conditions and modern demands, 
however, have changed somewhat the atti- 
tude toward Bible teaching. The Bible-school 
or Bible department can no longer continue 
in a loose and unintelligent fashion. It is now 
being conceived of educationally as well as 
spiritually and subject to such rules and prin- 
ciples as have made for success in modern edu- 
cation. The coming of the Bible to its rightful 
heritage in the popular mind is bringing new 
demands for methods and efficiency in Bible 
teaching. The signs of the times point to a 
modern type of Bible study which must be 
furnished by the church, and by Christian 
workers, or this type will be presented quite 
outside the pale of Christian enterprises. Al- 
ready in certain clubs and societies in our large 
cities thoughtful men and women have begun 
to study the Bible in accordance with purely 
modern scientific methods, especially with the 
idea of finding out the social and political mes- 
sage of the Christian Scriptures. The church 
has no right to invite students to Bible study 
if it is not willing or capable to furnish 



io6 World-Wide Bible Study 

trained teachers. The record of normal classes 
for the training of teachers in connection with 
the church reveals the insistent necessity of 
immediate and direct attention to this matter. 
The International Sunday School Association 
reports 28,011,194 scholars studying the Bible 
in connection with the Sunday-schools of the 
world, with 2,607,371 officers and teachers. 
We are appalled to discover in this vast en- 
rolment only 1,450 teacher-training classes, 
including 14,000 members, as an agency for 
producing efficient instruction. Mr. Marion 
Lawrance, General Secretary of the Interna- 
tional Sunday School Association, says: "Only 
one church in thirty-three has a teachers'-meet- 
ing of any character," and he continues, "prob- 
ably not more than one church in a hundred is 
making any systematic effort to supply its Sun- 
day-school with trained teachers." In other 
words, the most profoundly vital and valuable 
piece of literature in the world is presented 
to the minds of children and youths at their 
most susceptible stage of development and im- 
pression, by teachers who, in many instances 
at least, are possessed of little or no ability 
to get at the facts clearly or to interpret these 



The Bible Teacher lorj 

facts intelligently and practically in the terms 
of twentieth century life. 

The Bible-class teacher must be able in 
these times to present with intelligence the 
truth about God, and also to create a condi- 
tion in the mind, and in the environment of 
the student in which this truth can be most 
acceptably recognized and embraced. 

In other words, the Bible teacher's work is 
psychological and sympathetic, as well as in- 
structional and religious. The training of the 
Bible teacher, therefore, becomes quite as im- 
portant as the training of preachers. Indeed, 
the degree of importance may be decided in 
favor of the vocation of the teacher, if we 
consider the peculiarly formative and imitative 
attitude of the young mind over that of the 
adult, and the more intimate and informal 
union of personalities for repeated impact. 

What are some of the insistent demands 
which modern life makes for the preparation 
of the Bible teacher? 

A Clear Objective 

Many a teacher fails because he has nothing 
definite in mind. A business man asked a 



io8 World-Wide Bible Study 

teacher who desired his attendance at a Bible 
class: "What are you aiming to do?" Un- 
doubtedly the aim decides the method and spirit 
of success or failure in the undertaking. 
Where there is no concentration upon a great 
overmastering purpose, like conversion, or 
daily habits, or service, there is usually little 
energy and enthusiasm. There is no power 
to "discourage the unnecessary and invite the 
essential" if a real purpose is not constantly 
realized. 

We may well ask: Does the church really 
have an aim for the Sunday-school? If so, 
do the teachers know what that aim is? Is 
it first to teach a subject, or first to teach boys 
and girls and young men and young women, 
and what is it to teach? Has the Sunday- 
school an aim for the teaching of adults? If 
so, what aspects of the Bible most quickly and 
directly contribute to that ideal? Is it Bible 
history, literature, ethics, philosophy, devotion, 
evangelism, adaptation to modern problems? 
Is there a statesmanlike plan in the church of 
Christ to-day for Bible study and Bible teach- 
ing? 

The objective of some Bible study depart- 



The Bible Teacher 109 

ments seems to be numbers. Even this objec- 
tive is not to be despised. The University of 
Illinois enrolled last year 900 students in its 
voluntary Bible study classes in connection 
with the Young Men's Christian Association, 
These Bible groups scattered throughout the 
fraternities, athletic circles, and boarding clubs 
are helping to revolutionize the moral senti- 
ment of that great State University. A busi- 
ness man in Illinois who had occasion to em- 
ploy two University of Illinois students in 
some scientific work upon his farms, told me 
that they had been the only men he had ever 
employed who refused to work on Sunday. 
They attributed their attitude to the fact that 
a year previous they had studied, for several 
months in a small Bible group at the Univer- 
sity of Illinois, Jesus' teaching in relation to 
Sunday observance and rest. Results like 
these, following from this voluntary Bible study 
at this State University, began with an ideal 
of numbers on the part of a student teacher 
six years ago, who saw in one year his dream 
fulfilled of doubling the number of college men 
studying the Bible in his University. His chief 
objective was to secure a sufficient number of 



no World-Wide Bible Study 

students for this work to give the enterprise 
a strong and dignified momentum. The re- 
sult obtained, 290 men, opened the way for 
the deeper moral and regenerative ends of 
that Bible enterprise. 

We need repeatedly , to ask: Are our Bible 
classes aiming to really change personalities of 
the students? Do Bible teachers realize that 
religious education, especially, is a personal 
question; that the student is greater than the 
subject, the man more important than the 
method used to reach him, the workman more 
important than the work? *'Take heed that 
ye despise not one," said Jesus, who always 
pervaded his teaching with individual interest. 

The secret of the tutorial S3^stem at Prince- 
ton rests largely upon the opportunity of the 
teacher to cultivate individualism and inde- 
pendent thinking on the part of the students 
in his charge. Likewise, the ability of the 
Bible teacher to incite his students to think and 
to act is the crucial test of Bible success. 

The teacher's own use of the Bible and its 
influence on his career is a vital part of his 
objective. Tennyson said : "I am sending my 
son not to Marlborough, but to Bradley." 



The Bible Teacher iii 

More important to him than high tradition in a 
great school was high nobility of character — 
personality in a great instructor. John Stuart 
Mill remarked that Jowett was Baliol and Bal- 
iol was Jowett. The schoolmaster is more im- 
portant than the school or his own attainments 
even. Character caught as well as taught 
should be the objective of the teacher. 

Another objective in a church Bible depart- 
ment with which I am familar is a thorough- 
going training of teachers. Every address be- 
fore that school deals in part, at least, with 
this ideal. I have sometimes thought that some 
of the more spiritual objects of Bible study 
were neglected by this Bible school, yet this 
organization is working out one of the most 
complete and efficient systems of Bible teach- 
ing which I know of in America. No person 
is allowed to teach a Bible class who has not 
been in the training class exercises for at least 
a year in advance. The working principle of 
that Sunday-school consists in the thought that 
scholars will come to classes, providing the 
teacher really has something to offer them, 
and is able to present it in a sane, intelligent, 
and attractive way. 



112 World-Wide Bible Study 

Among other helpful methods for the train- 
ing of teachers is the Sunday-school workers' 
conference, provided that this meeting is com- 
prehensively planned, and time given to care- 
ful study and to the discussion of points of 
weakness and strength in our modern Sunday- 
school world. 

At one meeting I recall the whole evening 
was given to Bible study literature, courses 
of study used, Bible reference libraries, pam- 
phlet literature, and technical books on teacher 
training and Bible organization. On the tables 
were samples of constitutions of men's organ- 
ized Bible classes, Bible Institute programs, 
and suggestive printed announcements con- 
cerning Bible rallies, Bible lectures and social 
occasions. The address of the evening was en- 
titled "Literature upon the Life of Jesus." It 
was given by a virile, thoughtful teacher in a 
theological seminary, who had given years of 
his life in preparation of Bible studies, and in 
close investigation and research work in the 
New Testament. More than one superintend- 
ent and clergyman went away from this even- 
ing with a new sense of the demand and possi- 
bilities of Biblical study in our generation. 



The Bible Teacher 113 

The following topics which have been suc- 
cessfully used at such conferences of teachers 
and superintendents of Bible study may prove 
suggestive : 

The Bible and Social Service, 

The Bible and the Religious Press. 

The Sunday-School Libraries and Reference Libraries. 

The Pastor and the Bible-School. 

Teacher Training — Institutes — Preparation, etc. 

Summer Assemblies for Bible Study. 

Large Organized Classes for Adults. 

The Bible and National Ideals. 

Contribution of Modern Scholarship to the Bible. 

Conduct of the Class Hour. 

The Teacher's Opportunity Outside the Class. 

Daily Bible Study. 

Bible Study and Evangelism. 

Teaching the Bible to Primary Children. 

The Bible and Business Methods. 

The Poetry of the Bible. 

Study of the Bible by Books. 

Modern Knowledge of the Bible 
As the result of historical and scientific Bible 
study, modern Bible movements, and system- 
atic methods, a new attitude toward the Bible 
has arisen. It has become veritably a new book 
to many men and women. 

There was never a time, for example, when 
the study of the life and work of Jesus Christ 



114 World-Wide Bible Study 

was so illuminating and so fascinating as it 
is at present. President King, of Oberlin Col- 
lege, at the International Bible Conference of 
students at Columbus, Ohio, said: 

"No generation the world has ever seen has wit- 
nessed such study of His life as has this generation of 
ours. It is not an accident that every life of Christ 
worth reading, outside the Gospels, has been written 
since the year 1835. To our time, too, belongs the 
whole rise of the great science of Biblical theology, 
to our time the most searching studies in the teaching 
of Jesus. Men have been brought face to face with 
the life and spirit and teaching of Jesus as never be- 
fore, and it is a reasonable thing to expect the best 
Christian preaching, and the best Christian living the 
world has ever seen to be just ahead of us, not behind 
us." 

New Bible courses have arisen applicable to 
a new type of students, and to a new type 
of teachers. New methods of administration 
and development are being utilized toward the 
application of the Bible to modern conditions 
and problems. Indeed, a new constituency 
for the Bible has been added. It is a con- 
stituency of non-Christian men, persons who 
heretofore have hardly opened their Bibles. 
Among more than 3,000 Chinese students who 
were enrolled in conferences and meetings 



The Bible Teacher 115 

which I had the privilege of attending in China, 
there were numbered at least 1,500 nominal 
Confucianists. The students of India are 
studying the Bible quite regardless of race or 
sect. I found Muhammadan students quite as 
eager as the Christian Indian students for this 
study. Hundreds of American shop and fac- 
tory men, who have never made confession of 
any religious interest whatsoever, are attend- 
ing the noon shop Bible classes in a dozen of 
our large cities and towns. Last year in the 
colleges 6,156 non-Christian men were re- 
ported from 302 institutions as attending Bible 
study classes. 

New viewpoints, new interpretations, the 
fresh recasting of Bible truth in the termi- 
nology of twentieth century life, a new con- 
sciousness of the practical bearing of Bible 
truth upon such questions as labor and wealth, 
crime, intemperance, and immigration, are 
among the many influences which have changed 
the face of Bible enterprise. The teacher, 
therefore, is confronted with a larger prob- 
lem than ever before. Whether he is interested 
or not, he must know the present interpreta- 
tions and present-day methods of Bible study. 



ii6 World-Wide Bible Study 

If he fails to .know these, he loses at the out- 
set the intellectual and practical respect with- 
out which he can hardly expect to obtain and 
retain the real leadership of his class. He is 
at once relegated by his students as a back 
number, even before he gets a chance to present 
his message or influence the members of his 
group. 

**What do you consider to be the most im- 
portant essentials of a Bible class teacher?" 
was the question recently presented to one of 
our American college presidents. His answer 
was simple, but filled with suggestion: "Abil- 
ity to realize the past and translate it into the 
present." 

The Bible teacher must constantly inquire 
how he can connect the old with the new ; how 
he can make the past live in the present. He 
is dealing with material cast in the mould of 
Oriental thought and directed to another age. 
The style is formal and unlike the twentieth 
century realistic expression. The teacher 
must learn to paraphrase the Bible, translate 
it into the vernacular of his time. It is a 
question of natural human expression. A 
successful Bible teacher will be familiar 



The Bible Teacher 117 

with books upon psychology, pedagogy and 
Bible analysis. He knows that Bible study 
touches all sides of life. He will become fa- 
miliar with such books as Prof. Palmer's trea- 
tise, "The Teacher and other Essays" ; Prof. 
James' "Varieties of Religious Experience," 
and Dr. Clark's "Sixty Years with the Bible." 
He will also exemplify that saving judgment 
and good sense which chooses and shapes the 
Bible material to suit the individual and the 
times. To discern with discriminating insight 
the character and needs of the pupil, in order 
that he may relate to that unique individual 
his particular section of Bible truth, is an oc- 
cupation second to none, both in its value and 
in its fascination. Professor Palmer has said 
that the teacher who succeeds must have an 
"aptitude for vicariousness." He must bear 
the student's burden. The ability to clothe 
the truth of the Bible in such form as to make 
it attractive to the members of the class re- 
quires sympathetic imagination, sacrifice and 
unselfishness. It is simply following the 
method of Jesus who talked to Orientals in 
words and symbols which were the most fitting 
vehicles for carrying to them His truth. 



Ii8 World-Wide Bible Study 

The teacher must be himself. His truth 
must be experimental, his own experience. His 
ideas may be suggested from many sources, 
but the fire of their conviction must be lighted 
by God in his own heart. It is folly for a 
teacher to try to imitate another, or to pre- 
sent a mosaic of other men's words. A stu- 
dent imitator of the great Scriptural exegete, 
Dr. Broadus, was said to be successful in 
imitating the great scholar only in the squeak 
in his voice. Attempts at slavish imitation 
are usually followed by similar disaster. 

Individual Expression 

Every Bible teacher needs the benefit of a 
teacher-training class. He should guard him- 
self, however, lest he accept thoughtlessly ut- 
terances of the leader of the class as his own 
form of expression. The teacher should pre- 
pare his lesson before attending the training 
class. Thus the material is in the mould 
of his own thought and personality, and the 
hints, counsel, and information of other 
Bible teachers will find some solid foundation 
soil, and can be adequately appropriated or ad- 
justed. 



The Bible Teacher I19 

David could not work in Saul's armor. 
Neither can a teacher express the truth of his 
own individual soul if he depends upon bor- 
rowed speech or borrowed ideas. A Bible 
course or a lesson-help can be made inimical 
to successful teaching by too servile dependence 
upon it. Let a teacher first decide upon 
his style of expression, and let it be his own. 
Then he can read ad libitum and get sugges- 
tion freely; his message will not be an echo, 
but a voice, fuller and more perfect for his 
training. The first sign of decay in Bible 
teaching lies in the repetition of some other 
man's ideas or thoughts. ''It grips me," said 
a student after hearing his teacher expound a 
passage. The truth gripped the student be- 
cause the study had first gripped the teacher's 
individuality. 

It is possible to develop a teaching individ- 
uality. It may lie in the instructor's quietness 
of manner or in the subdued air of a good 
listener, allowing others to take much of the 
time. It may be in a few trenchant epigrams 
which the teacher has thought out during the 
week. It may be in his power to memorize 
an impressive passage and quietly present it 



I20 World-Wide Bible Study 

at the opportune moment. It may be in the 
reality or deep experience of his prayer life, 
''Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop 
than when we soar." It may be in the inti- 
mate knowledge of and trust in the men in 
his group. The teacher can draw the mem- 
bers of his class to himself, as Jesus did at 
times, by allowing them to get glimpses into 
the working of his own spiritual conscious- 
ness. With any method, he vitally needs the 
deep experiences of prayer life. Thus, let the 
teacher be ambitious to do his "thing" as Em- 
erson would say, and out of his own personal 
treasure of temperament and charm and spirit- 
ual energy, clothe anew for his students the 
great eternal verities of heaven. 

"Yield thy poor best and mark not how or why; 
Lest one day seeing all about thee spread 
A mighty crowd, and marvelously fed, 
Thy heart break out into a bitter cry 
*I might have furnished, I, yea, even I, 
The two small fishes and the barley bread.* " 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PREPARATION AND TRAINING OF BIBLE 
TEACHERS 

nr HE present revival of interest in Bible study 
calls for a new ministry — a teaching min- 
istry. The ability to teach the Bible involves 
three things upon the part of the teacher ; first, 
a clear understanding of the truth to be taught ; 
second, a mastery of the art of expression and 
interpretation of that truth ; third, a knowl- 
edge of the student and his needs. These abil- 
ities are not to be had for the asking. Their 
possession involves a patient plodding, deter- 
mined spirit. Darwin, in a letter to Romanes, 
gives as the motto for every scientific worker, 
*Tt is dogged as does it." Any one may con- 
sent to ''take a class." To become a teacher, 
however, is a serious and important business, 
involving preparation of the most thorough 
and unrelaxing kind. 

Among the modern agencies adapted to va- 
ried communities and types of persons who 

121 



122 World-Wide Bible Study 

aspire to this teaching ministry is the teacher- 
training class for the making of efficient Bible 
leaders. 

Such a class is not a lecture platform; it 
is not a pulpit; it is not a place for passing 
blocks of knowledge from mind to mind. This 
class is rather a meeting for suggestion, for 
stimulation, for the discovery of clear ideas 
concerning the subject in hand, for the acquire- 
ment of the spirit of devoutness, for the gather- 
ing of incentive and dynamic through the free 
interchange and presentation of ideas and ex- 
periences. The class is a weekly reminder of 
the purpose and importance of the Bible teach- 
er's position. It is for the sake of the solidar- 
ity, unification, and promotion of the Bible de- 
partment. It is an assembly for intellectual 
and spiritual exchange, a place for the action 
of personality upon personality. The training 
class is a meeting of persons who are already 
leading Bible classes, or of persons who are 
preparing to lead Bible classes; or it may in- 
clude in its membership both kinds of individ- 
uals. The training class usually meets once 
each week, several days before the class teach- 
ers are to face their respective groups. The 



Training of Bible Teachers 123 

meeting is frequently held at the home of the 
training instructor, sometimes at a Sunday 
morning hour before church, or an hour di- 
rectly after supper, or from seven to eight on 
a weekday evening. 

The training class is essential in every Chris- 
tian organization where there are two Bible 
group leaders, or teachers. The teacher of 
this training class may be a clergyman, profes- 
sor, general secretary, or layman, provided in 
each case the man is a Bible student and is 
keen to impart his Bible enthusiasm. It is 
usually wise to secure as teacher a man of 
mature thought and some experience in teach- 
ing. 

At one of our large Eastern Universities, 
I visited a Bible class in a college fraternity. 
The leader of the class was a student who, in 
opening the class hour, said: "Fellows, I 
have had one of the greatest revelations in my 
life in the normal training class, this week, 
when President gave the members an ab- 
solutely new conception of this passage which 
we are considering to-day, together with the 
way to present it." From the opening mo- 
ment of that class there was contagious vital 



124 World-Wide Bible Study 

interest because the leader was simply on fire 
with his nezv idea. The teacher of that train- 
ing class was speaking directly and forcibly 
through this student leader who had caught 
his idea and his passionate enthusiasm for Bible 
discovery. 

I. The first object of a teacher-training class 
is to give the Bible teacher an intelligent grasp 
of the subject matter which he is to present, 
in turn, to the members in his group. The 
Bible material itself should be given a first place 
in the discussion. No efficiency in method or 
principle of teaching will suffice to cover a 
deficiency on the part of the leader in the 
knowledge of the facts of the lesson. The 
class leader should insist on a thorough 
preparation upon a definite piece of Bib- 
lical literature by every member of the training 
class. This section of truth should be so thor- 
oughly investigated and analyzed in the train- 
ing class as to leave an indelible impression 
upon the minds and convictions of the group 
leaders. Every member of the training class 
should know at the close of the hour the real 
meaning of the passage or lesson he is to pre- 
sent to his group. He should also be taught in 



Training of Bible Teachers 125 

the training class to consider this truth in re- 
lation to both the individual and the commu- 
nity consciousness. It should be always kept 
in mind that the members are to teach the Bible 
itself, not simply the means of applying Bible 
principles. 

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth 
shall make you free." 

2. The training class exists for the purpose 
of making efficient Bible teachers. Indeed, 
the teacher of a Bible class is as truly the ob- 
ject of study on the part of the members as 
the subject matter. His own interest and ex- 
perience with the Bible are keenly scrutinized 
by the members of his group who are form- 
ing their opinions about the influence of the 
Bible by discerning its influence upon their 
teachers. Unless the teacher has intense inter- 
est in his subject, he will fail to secure either 
study or attendance on the part of the mem- 
bers of his class. 

In these busy days there is a tendency on 
the part of the Bible teacher left to himself to 
omit preparation and thereby fail in his task. 
The training class secures and insists upon the 
systematic preparation of the teachers. At one 



126 World-Wide Bible Study 

of the institutions in Canada, the members of 
the Bible class made the condition of their 
attendance hinge upon the teachers furnish- 
ing the class something worth while. The 
moment that truth fails to grip a teacher he 
will experience the discouraging fact that the 
members of his class are making other engage- 
ments for the Bible study hour. 

The training class provides the teacher with 
fresh material and with new adaptation of that 
material. James A. Garfield, when a teacher 
in a small college in the Middle West, was 
asked how he held the attention of his students. 
He replied: "I never give my students cold 
victuals." It is all over with a teacher when 
he opens his class hour by saying: "I have 
been too busy to prepare this week, and shall 
need to depend upon you to do most of the 
talking to-day." It may be well for the teacher 
to cultivate a talent for silence, but behind his 
silence he should be able to reveal, subcon- 
sciously at least, that he is thoroughly ac- 
quainted with his subject. Professor Palmer, 
of Harvard, declares that he often prepares 
even more earnestly and thoroughly upon 
things to which he gives no utterance in the 



Training of Bible Teachers 127 

class room than upon the things which he does 
express. 

His consciousness of having mastered his 
subject gives him the ability to move about 
with freedom in his theme and impresses the 
students with the fact that he has a reserve of 
knowledge. 

3. The class should magnify, dignify, and 
vitaHze the entire Bible study enterprise. In 
this gathering an objective and policy for 
Bible study should be discussed — a policy large 
and difficult enough to necessitate superhuman 
assistance. The training class should be the 
creative center of the Bible study propaganda 
through every Bible group. It is the center 
for spiritual dynamic as well as the center for 
the application of the practical meanings of 
the Bible. The gathering of the chosen Bible 
teachers of any Christian organization should 
mark the beginning of a vast undertaking for 
the social, moral, and religious development 
of the community. 

Emerson said he cared little for the names 
of schools, but much for the names of the 
teachers. The teacher should be in the first 
place a real Bible student. He should be a man 



128 World-Wide Bible Study 

who is willing to think through his work in 
order to bring to the training class a clear 
stream of fresh thought. No apostle of 
intellectual confusion need apply as a teacher 
of such highly important men. He should 
also possess a self-denying disposition, al- 
lowing the students in his class to take up 
much of the time. Teachers who talk not 
wisely, but too much, have spoiled all kinds of 
Bible classes. The training class teacher should 
have a vivid conception of the purpose of his 
work. When a person is asked to conduct 
this class there should be very careful explana- 
tion as to the precise objective. Some train- 
ing class teachers have failed dismally because 
they did not realize that the training class was 
quite different from a regular Bible class, re- 
quiring wholly different plan and preparation. 
Too much emphasis can hardly be placed 
upon the right choice of a teacher for this train- 
ing class. Let it be an outstanding qualifica- 
tion that this man believes something irresis- 
tibly. He should be "dreadfully in earnest" 
as Carlyle would say. He should be a 
man who depends not upon raptures and 
ecstasies for his inspiration, but a broad, deep- 




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Training of Bible Teachers 129 

minded sensible Christian who appreciates the 
inestimable privilege of imparting knowledge 
and religious enthusiasm to men who have un- 
usual potential and multiplying power. Such 
a teacher must look to the training class for 
important suggestions. 

How shall the teacher secure the ability to 
ask thought-producing questions rather than 
questions which may be easily answered by 
"Yes," or "No," or by nodding or shaking 
the head? A Bible class for adults does not 
involve necessarily a study in kindergarten 
methods; it does involve, however, some 
genuine thoughtfulness toward the presenta- 
tion of truth in such form as will immediately 
arouse persons to the exercise of their mental 
and spiritual faculties. Some successful teach- 
ers place their entire subject matter in the 
form of questions. I am personally acquainted 
with men who spend weeks in formulating 
and writing out in epigrammatic form the 
gist of the subjects which they are teaching. 

Upon a certain Easter Sunday, I heard a 
Bible teacher in Osaka, Japan, conduct a Bible 
class in a manner worthy of emulation. I was 
impressed with his directness. He swept past 



I30 World-Wide Bible Study 

the details of mere geography and incident, 
which often obstruct passage to the main 
truths, and asked immediately of one mem- 
ber of the class: "Exactly what does the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ mean to you?" 

Another teacher of my acquaintance, in 
teaching a group which was studying the in- 
cident of the Prodigal Son, centered practi- 
cally his whole thought upon the questions, 
*'What did the father mean when he said, 
*My son is found'?" "What does it mean to 
be lost or found, according to God's idea?" 
The training class furnishes the opportunity 
of training Bible leaders in the teaching art of 
questioning. 

The subject of the studies in the training 
class varies with local circumstances. It is 
customary to include in the training class hour 
some discussion of the topic to be taught by 
the members. Certain training classes, how- 
ever, have been successfully conducted by tak- 
ing topics similar to the following: 

The Method and Spirit of Jesus' Teaching. 
The Structure and Message of the Bible. 
Essential Elements of a Successful Bible Class Teacher. 
Methods and Principles of Bible Teaching. 



Training of Bible Teachers 131 

It is usually advisable to have a training 
class for each separate course presented, even 
though there be but two or three leaders in 
that course. It is essential for these leaders 
to meet together to focus attention upon their 
particular topic. In some cases, however, per- 
sons who have been teaching in different parts 
of the New Testament have met one another 
with profit; while those engaged in Old 
Testament instruction have met in a class by 
themselves. 

The training class should assist the teacher 
in the fine art of illustrating the truth of the. 
Bible. Perhaps no literature gives better ex- 
ample than the Bible of the vividness lent to 
facts by apt illustrations. Governor Woodrow 
Wilson said recently that he had been teaching 
for twenty years and had come to the conclusion 
that the students forgot his lectures, but remem- 
bered his illustrations. Many a truth is fixed 
by a story or by an apt incident. On the 
other hand, many an illustration is so involved 
that it really never illustrates. 

I once heard a good man trying to explain 
an ethical truth by a chemical illustration. His 
want of knowledge of the exact sciences, as 



132 World-Wide Bible Study 

well as his lack of terminal facilities, brought 
his hearers into such a hazy atmosphere con- 
cerning the whole subject that they seemed 
only to see ''men as trees walking." It was 
confusion worse confounded. No one ever 
really did know just what the man premedi- 
tated. One student, after the class, was asked 
the subject of the hour. He replied truthfully, 
'The teacher didn't say." 

To use illustrations that bear on the life of 
to-day helps wonderfully in successful Bible 
teaching. Politics, commerce, college life, ath- 
letics, personal incident, biography, autobicg- 
raphy — anything that is of human interest hits 
the mark. Illustrations drawn from Horatius 
at the bridge, the life of Julius Caesar, Luther 
at Worms, and the Charge of the Light Bri- 
gade, may usually be omitted without heavy 
loss. In short, it is often more effective for 
the leader to use his own illustrations rather 
than those given by the training class teacher. 
The training class teacher should show the 
leaders how to find their own illustrations. 

Illustrations, as well as the general treat- 
ment, should come quickly to the point. I 
heard of a man not long ago who was asked 



Training of Bible Teachers 133 

to speak upon the fascinating subject of "Chris- 
tian Missions in China." He divided his sub- 
ject into five heads as follows: First, "The 
Idea of Missions in the Eternal Counsels of 
the Father" ; second, "The Idea of Missions as 
Found in the Old Testament"; third, "The 
Idea of Missions as Revealed in the Apostolic 
Church"; fourth, "The History of Missions 
in the Nineteenth Century"; and fifth, "Mis- 
sion Work in China." He was asked by a 
discerning person who heard his outline to 
kindly omit the first four heads. 

Unless the leader has the ability to see 
things in their true perspective, and to illus- 
trate the central truth with little introduction, 
he will usually fail in holding the attention 
of his students. Above all, the training class 
teacher in illustrating should avoid vagueness 
and irrelevancy. He should be satisfied to in- 
culcate a few great ideas. 

A college man who is successfully leading 
several Bible groups in one of our larger uni- 
versities illustrated his subject — The Prayer 
Life of Jesus — by reference to the football 
game which had occurred between his college 
and another institution the preceding day. He 



134 World-Wide Bible Study 

drew attention to the fact that at a certain 
point in the game the physical reserve of their 
own men gave way, and although they were 
not lacking in science and technique, their home 
team was found inadequate to cope with its 
opponents. The rival team had built up 
stronger physical resistance through longer 
hours of training. Likewise, he said, Jesus 
proved that moral reserve, so invaluable, could 
only be secured beforehand by practise and 
private devotion. It was noticeable that he 
had the attention of every man in the class 
throughout his description of this central truth 
in the prayer life of Jesus. 

The teacher should quickly obtain a point 
of contact with the members of his group. It 
is a good principle in illustrating for the teacher 
to inquire, "What most interests the members 
of my class?" Indeed, the value of utilizing 
subjects that are of personal interest applies 
to the teacher as well as to the students. It 
is reported that Bishop Greer, of New York, 
when invited to speak at Vassar College, wrote 
to President Taylor, of Vassar, asking him 
what he should talk about. President Taylor 
replied, "Speak upon some subject in which 



Training of Bible Teachers 135 

you are deeply interested, but kindly avoid the 
topic of Mary and Martha, since four preachers 
have recently spoken upon this subject." 

The teacher-training class would be worth 
while if it simply afforded a place in which 
to exchange experience concerning the ways 
and means of teaching. Reports from the classes 
should be heard at each training class session. 
Here is a fine means for checking up attend- 
ance in the individual circles covering their 
real condition. Some effective training classes 
consume at least half of the period in the dis- 
cussion of pedagogical principles. The teacher 
asks, "What is your method?" "In conduct- 
ing your class last week, what did you do 
first?" "Did you open with prayer?" "How 
many men took topics to look up?" "What 
was your objective?" "Did the men talk most 
or did you?" "Do you think that your men 
are learning to form the daily habit of Bible 
study?" "What did you do last week out- 
side the class to interest your men?" "Did 
you have a secretary for your Bible class?" 
"What Bible reference books did you have upon 
the table?" "Did you bring to your class 
something definite?" "What was it?" 



136 World-Wide Bible Study 

Answers to such detailed questions as these 
are indeed "vital statistics" for the training 
class. It may be found by the comparison of 
these experiences that some men succeed in 
dividing the time of their groups into exact 
periods : time for discussion, methods, paper, 
questions, summary, prayer, etc. Others may 
be successful with no particular plan, but with 
a genuine sense of mission in relation to one 
masterful truth. I know a teacher whose am- 
bition it is to bring eight or ten great ideas 
to his students during the year. His entire 
work revolves around these facts, which are 
burned deep into the consciousness of his stu- 
dents. The teacher-training class should em- 
phasize and multiply the central truths to be 
taught in a given course. It should be a uni- 
versal law of the training class that every man 
should be in possession of every portion of 
valuable experience possessed by every other 
member in the class. 

The ideal of the training class should be to 
show persons how to lead rather than to offer 
them information. The training class teacher 
should not feel called upon to turn himself 
into an animated encyclopedia of historical, 




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Training of Bible Teachers 137 

philosophical, social, and religious learning. 
If the teacher of this class has a sermon to 
preach, or a lecture to deliver, or a hobby to 
ride, it would be well for him to free himself 
from this incubus before entering the class. 
This class is not a bridge upon which a real 
Bible leader may cross to his own class hour; 
it is rather an incentive to his individuality 
and original thoughtfulness. 

At a large professional school a Bible lec- 
turer was asked to take the training class lead- 
ers, and in one month he succeeded in quench- 
ing all of their interest in Bible teaching. He 
accomplished this rather unenviable result by 
delivering an hour's lecture each week in the 
form of a sermon on particular passages of 
the New Testament. At the end of the month 
he was transferred to another niche of service, 
and the general secretary of the college as- 
sociation, who knew relatively much less about 
the Bible than the Bible lecturer, but who knew 
how to engage students in natural conversa- 
tion, took the class and held the men with 
success during the entire year. 

Talk is not the whole thing; the joy of dis- 
covery on the part of the members themselves 



138 World-Wide Bible Study 

is the prime object to be sought; individual 
ideas are what we want. It often happens 
that the best training class teacher is the man 
who does not know so much that he feels called 
upon constantly to deliver his truth in the 
form of an oration to his innocent victims. An 
honest man in a church Bible class, which I 
visited some time ago, said to me that he some- 
times thanked God that he was ignorant, since 
he feared that if he had large knowledge he 
would bore people with it as badly as did the 
teacher of his Bible class. To kindle, to 
awaken, to fire the imagination, to educate 
("draw out'*) to make attentive — this is fine 
art on the part of the men who would make 
Bible teachers. 

The motto of Joseph Neesima may well be 
written over the doorway of the training class : 
**Let us advance upon our knees." Jesus 
said: "The words that I have spoken unto 
you are spirit, and are life." There should 
be a deeply conceived sense of spiritual possi- 
bility in the minds of those who have to do 
with the making of Bible teachers. This class 
prepares men to handle the Word of God. 
"These are they that testify of me," said the 



Training of Bible Teachers 139 

Great Teacher. If the teacher-training class 
does not emphasize the spiritual meaning of 
the Bible in its relation to the individual prayer 
life, as well as to the winning of men to Chris- 
tianity, it certainly omits one of its first mis- 
sions. Every year hundreds of students are 
led into friendship with Jesus Christ through 
Bible study : but these hundreds would be thou- 
sands if the leaders and members of Bible 
classes thoroughly appreciated the value of this 
training hour, both for the things "spiritually 
discerned," and for evangelistic incentive. 

Across one side of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association Hall in the city of Calcutta, 
I read the motto: "Bought by the power of 
prayer." The training class is peculiarly fitted 
to be the hiding-place of great supernatural 
possibilities for the institution or for the church 
in which the class is held. In short, the min- 
istry of the training class is effective in pro- 
portion as it becomes — not simply a center 
for methodical discussions — but also a real 
mount of spiritual vision. "But these are writ- 
ten, that ye may believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye 
may have life in his name." 



I40 World-Wide Bible Study 

Suggestions 

1. Secure a training class leader who is pop- 
ular, alert to modern issues, willing really to 
sacrifice time and thought for this great busi- 
ness of developing Bible teachers. 

2. Procure occasionally some surprises for 
the class in the way of a special visitor, spe- 
cial news of Bible progress, new books on the 
subject in hand, an .occasional social or recep- 
tion in a private home, or an outing in the 
spring or autumn months. 

3. Insist that no person shall lead a Bible 
class who does not attend a training group, if 
one is provided. This training class is the place 
for securing team play, solidarity, enthu- 
siasm. A man may be a good individual foot- 
ball player, but if he does not know the signals 
used in a particular game, he may spoil the 
play and lose the game. The training class 
should be the place for agreeing upon a joint 
policy for Bible work and every leader should 
have a part in this council of war. The chair- 
man of the Bible study committee should be in 
close touch with the training class, if not actu- 
ally a member. 



Training of Bible Teachers 141 

4. Never forget that the ability to lead and 
instruct such a class multiplies a man's life 
by as many men as the class contains. Many 
a teacher might accomplish a more far-reach- 
ing service by training a dozen of his efficient 
and interested members to lead discussional 
Bible groups of their own than by teaching 
personally a large and successful Bible class. 
Mr. Moody was a Christian statesman and 
one of his fundamental principles holds in this 
case: 

"It is better to set ten men to work, than to 
do the work of ten men." 

5. Remember that you can secure any per- 
son whom you really need to lead the training 
class. Never be discouraged if the right per- 
son does not at first respond favorably. The 
very busy dean of a large university recently ac- 
cepted the leadership of a teacher-training class, 
composed of students who were to teach the 
Bible in Greek letter fraternities of his insti- 
tution, after these men had approached him 
nine different times. Finally they called upon 
the president of the college and secured his 
promise to lighten the regular curriculum 
work of the dean in order that he might ac- 



142 World-Wide Bible Study 

cept this inportant service. Armed with this 
ammunition, fifty men besieged the professor 
in his own home. Of necessity, the professor 
awoke to the deep earnestness of the men and 
also to the seriousness of the undertaking. 

6. The opportunity of reaching men who 
are not Christians, as well as of vitalizing the 
lives of mere nominal Christians, should be 
clearly conceived in each session. One Bible 
teacher of my acquaintance several years ago 
brought together in a group nine non-Chris- 
tian men with the express purpose of being 
the means through Bible study of leading them 
into the Christian Church. Before the end of 
that year, eight of these men had decided defin- 
itely for Christ and the Church. In a large 
organized Bible class in a city church, not 
long ago, one hundred men were brought into 
church membership through the influence of 
their Bible studies. No session of the train- 
ing class should be devoid of emphasis upon 
the Bible's message to men who do not know 
God. 

7. Much care should be taken to start the 
training class sufficiently in advance to make 
certain a preparatory training of leaders. In 



Training of Bible Teachers 143 

some churches this training class begins in the 
spring to train leaders who are to lead Bible 
classes the following autumn. In some Chris- 
tian organizations this training class continues 
the entire year and is composed of persons who 
are both leading classes and who are also be- 
ing trained for prospective leadership. It is 
really a Bible training school for the raising 
up of people who will be adequate to the mod- 
ern call of a trained Bible-teaching ministry. 

8. Insist upon daily study and preparation 
by each member of the training class. Show 
clearly that example is more than precept. A 
teacher who really studies with a regularly re- 
curring habit is worth more to his class than 
tons of hollow theoretical advice concerning 
the value of regular Bible study. A teacher 
in a city in the Middle West spends one hour 
each day in Bible study, prayer, and prepara- 
tion for his teaching. No one ever needs to 
drag the students into his class. He himself 
is the best drawing card. He has actually dis- 
covered the Bible. 

9. Secure some person who will be definitely 
responsible to keep up the attendance and in- 
terest in the training class. Some one should 



144 World-Wide Bible Study 

be thoroughly determined that this class suc- 
ceeds. Nothing can be taken for granted. At 
West Point every member of the training class 
is reminded by a personal call just in advance 
of the meeting hour by the class secretary or 
by the leader. Details of room arrangements, 
time, and any change of meeting, should be 
cared for in businesslike fashion. 

lo. Interest students in up-to-date Biblical 
literature. A few of the following helps 
should be found upon the table of every 
teacher-training class : 

Books relating to the principles and methods of teaching. 

Constructive books appertaining to solving of intel- 
lectual religious questions. 

Well-chosen maps. 

A few choice devotional books. 

Two or three of the best biographies. 

Books and literature relative to the special subject of 
study. 

One or two brief commentaries (The Cambridge Bible 
Series, for example). 

A Bible Dictionary. 

It will be found that the members of the 
training class will spend considerable time in 
looking over these books before and after the 
session; orders for books will be taken, and 




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Training of Bible Teachers 145 

the result will often be a life-long, vital in- 
terest in the fascinating subject of Bible study 
on the part of members of the class. The li- 
brarian will often assist teacher Bible training 
by setting aside library books bearing upon the 
subject of study, or by ordering new books 
especially desired. 

11. Be mindful that sometimes a man who 
may not be highly learned in Biblical knowl- 
edge may successfully lead a training class. 
In some cases training classes have succeeded 
where the teacher has been little more than 
a presiding officer, but has understood the ob- 
ject of teacher-training. The training leader 
who can lead without seeming to do so, quickly 
emphasizes the necessity for the contribution 
of each member of the class. 

12. Make certain that this training class pre- 
sents the truths of the Bible as means to an 
end. Keep in view the fact that your Bible 
study is to directly affect daily life. The class 
is the hiding-place of service as well as of de- 
votion and training. Every Bible teacher 
should be constantly reminded that the real 
result of Bible study must be accounted for in 
terms of life and serviceableness. What are 



146 World-Wide Bible Study 

the practical and utilitarian results of Bible 
study in my group, or in my community? Is 
the Bible under my leadership becoming a dy- 
namic force in the lives of the members of 
my class? Is it really worth while, as judged 
by the visible, as well as by the invisible re- 
sults? Such questions will help to focus the 
kind of applications of truth to be considered 
in this agency for training Bible teachers. 
For, indeed, real Bible teachers develop "doers 
of the word, not hearers only." 

The Teacher. Palmer. $1.50. 

The Making of a Teacher. Brumbaugh. $1.00. 

Talks to Teachers. James. $1.50. 

How to Make the Bible Real. King. 5 cents. 

Point of Contact in Teaching. Du Bois. 75 cents. 

How to Teach the Bible. Gregory. 15 cents. 

Training the Teacher. Schauffler and others, 50 cents. 

Teaching and Teachers, Trumbull. $1.10. 

Primer on Teaching. Adams. 20 cents. 

The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory. 50 cents. 

The Teaching of Bible Classes. See. 60 conts. 

Starting to Teach. Foster. 40 cents. 

How to Read the Bible. Smith. 45 cents. 

Hints on Bible Study. Atkins. 45 cents. 

The Bible Handbook. Angus. $1.50. 

Effective Leadership in Bible Classes. Bosworth and 

others. 5 cents. 
Training of the Twelve. Bruce. $2.50. 
Way to Teach the Bible. Moore. 75 cents. 



Training of Bible Teachers 147 

Teacher Training With the Master Teacher. Beards- 
lee. 50 cents. 
Sixty Years With the Bible. Clarke. $1.25. 

These books, together with recent pamphlets 
and literature upon Bible teaching, may be se- 
cured from The Sunday School Times Com- 
pany, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or from the 
Association Press, 124. East Twenty-eighth 
Street, New York City. 



CHAPTER IX 

MAINTAINING INTEREST AND ATTENDANCE IN 
BIBLE CLASSES 

HTHE rapid growth of interest in the Bible 
on the part of thinking men has brought 
to the leaders in the great modern Bible cru- 
sade not simply the problems of extension, but 
the equally important problems of development 
and efficiency. How to sustain the awak- 
ened interest of these students of the Bible 
until individual habits of study are formed, or 
until the inexpressibly rich life-values of the 
Bible are discovered and made serviceable, are 
matters of chief concern. 

The best method of maintaining attendance 
is not a method, but a man, — a man studying 
the Bible regularly and ardently. When 
Herschel was asked his most important dis- 
covery, he answered, "Sir Humphry Davy." 
A few men actually studying the Bible daily 
with profit and enthusiasm are worth more in 
any community than all other methods com- 
148 



Interest and Attendance 149 

bined in sustaining a vital Bible interest 
throughout the year. The example of one real 
Bible student in a class is contagious and ir- 
resistible. Many a inan has first become in- 
terested in the Bible by witnessing the profit- 
able result of a regular Bible habit in his 
friend, room-mate, or member of his house- 
hold. The Bible, a record of the world's great- 
est personalities, is usually discovered through 
a personality. 

To this end it is first of all important to 
make sure that a goodly number of individ- 
uals in every institution associate their effort 
toward one of the chief results of this entire 
movement, namely, personal, intelligent, sys- 
tematic and daily study of the Word of God. 
It is largely because of the experience of men 
who have formed such habits that the Bible 
has been able to hold its ground and advance 
in influence from year to year. Let no institu- 
tion deceive itself by thinking that the attend- 
ance in classes can be maintained by any novel, 
sleight-of-hand invention. The first sign of 
permanence in any Bible department consists 
in the fact that a number of men have been 
induced to form persistent Bible stud}?- habits. 



ISO World-Wide Bible Study 

The Bible Study Organiser, a Real Leader 
of Men. — Throughout the history of Bible 
study one man has usually been chiefly respon- 
sible for maintaining successful voluntary Bible 
study in an institution. This is equally true 
in a church, a college, a club, a Christian As- 
sociation, or on a battleship. So truly is this be- 
coming realized that already a large number of 
churches, colleges, and Christian organizations 
are employing Bible secretaries or religious 
work directors for leadership in their Bible un- 
dertakings. This man has generally been the 
chairman of the Bible study committee. He 
should be left free from other duties in order 
that he may give exclusive attention to this ab- 
sorbing task, which is second to none in the 
entire circle of modern moral and religious ac- 
tivity. He should be one of the strongest and 
most representative men in the local commun- 
ity. He should be a keen student of success- 
ful Bible study departments in other institu- 
tions. Some of these successful Bible enter- 
prises should be visited personally by him. He 
should without fail be in attendance at some 
of the important national Bible conferences. 

The chairman or organizer of the Bible work 



Interest and Attendance 151 

should not be asked personally to lead a Bible 
class in those sections where the Bible activity 
is carried on with the proportions of a real 
movement. If he conceives aright his mission 
as a leader of the Bible cause, his time and 
thought will be fully occupied in the outlining 
and promoting of the Bible study policy, and 
no point in this policy is more important than 
maintaining throughout the year the interest 
and attendance of persons in the classes. He 
will consider his position as one of the most 
important he will ever hold in his life. If he 
is a real leader of men, this will be especially 
true. He must be competent to choose with 
discrimination the leaders of the classes, and 
the members of his Bible study committee. He 
must have the ability so to organize his work 
and his men as to know concretely, week by 
week, the success or failure of every class. He 
should have ready and constant access to the 
representative men and educators of his local- 
ity as helpers in counsel, teaching and training. 
He must be able to hope when others despair. 
He may well cultivate patience and composure. 
"Great peace have they that love thy law.*' 
Every probable lessening of interest or attend- 



152 World-Wide Bible Study 

ance must be anticipated by him, and counter- 
acted by new and attractive features. 

The Bible Class Teacher. — This man, in 
large measure, holds the key to the success of 
his class. He must necessarily remember the 
essentials of his office : prayer ; spiritual and in- 
tellectual preparation, including always a daily 
study of the Bible; interest in the men outside 
of as well as during the class hour; getting 
the men to do the talking, rather than talking 
too much himself. 

Various programs are successfully used. 
One teacher keeps in mind the following: 

Opening prayers by several members, five minutes. 

A suggestive consideration of the lesson for the com- 
ing week, five minutes. 

Members of the class are asked what they obtained 
from the week's study, ten minutes. 

Difficulties in the lessons discussed, ten minutes. 

Paper or special topic presented by member of the 
class, five minutes. 

Exposition of the lesson on the part of the teacher, 
ten minutes. 

Prayer, five minutes. 

Another successful teacher has no set plan, 
but considers the questions which are central, 
with much real prayer. It would be a great 
mistake for any teacher to have such a hard 




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Interest and Attendance 153 

and fast system of time arrangements in his 
class that he could not easily adjust himself 
to the needs of the hour. A very real part of 
the success of the hour consists in the teacher's 
ability to get his men to study daily. Pri- 
marily the teacher must be able to bring some- 
thing to his class, if he expects to keep their 
attendance. Every session may well be con- 
sidered by the teacher as an occasion of eternal 
importance. The teacher must know what he 
is about. He needs to study how to make his 
ideas clear ('*2 Tim. 2 : 15"). 

An Assistant to the Teacher. — It has been 
found useful to appoint a member of the class 
to look especially after the attendance, to aid 
in securing promptness, and to arrange the 
various details of the meeting place. The as- 
sistant teacher is able to furnish the teacher 
with valuable suggestions regarding the needs 
of the men and the conduct of the class hour. 
He is also receiving good training for the pros- 
pective leadership of a group. The meeting 
of the class teacher with his assistant for prayer 
before the session of the class is highly desir- 
able. "If two of you shall agree on earth as 
touching anything that they shall ask, it shall 



154 World-Wide Bible Study 

be done for them of my Father who is in 
heaven/* 

Personal Interviews with the Students. — At 
one of our large universities, where the Bible 
work has reached the students in most gratify- 
ing and effective fashion, the general secre- 
tary has had the habit of meeting personally, 
for at least a half-hour each week, in his own 
room, the teachers of each Bible class in a par- 
ticular course. He has thus been able to keep 
informed regarding their thinking and dif- 
ficulties, and to add his own personal incentive 
in answering questions, and in friendly encour- 
agement. A Bible department in which expe- 
rienced workers would thus weekly meet the 
teachers in every course would not awaken 
suddenly at the middle of the year to find that 
poor attendance and lack of interest in certain 
Bible groups had ruined the effectiveness and 
reputation of the work. 

Persona! Invitation Imntediately Preceding 
the Class Hour. — An effective way of securing 
regular attendance, especially where most of 
the classes meet at the same time, has been for 
the Bible teachers, or assistant leaders, to call 
immediately before the class hour at the rooms 



Interest and Attendance 155 

of the class members who are inclined to be 
delinquent, reminding them of the classes, and 
sometimes going with them to the place of 
meeting. In some classes a perfect record of 
attendance throughout the year has been main- 
tained by this simple means of personal re- 
minder. 

In addition to the suggestions for maintain- 
ing attendance already mentioned, I would 
suggest the following agencies by means of 
which Bible study has become increasingly ef- 
ficient in various parts of the world: 

No more effective agency than the Bible 
Institute is now in use for both the intensive 
and also the extensive development of inter- 
est in the Christian Scriptures. It comes in 
the midst of the college year, when results 
are immediately available. The Institute aims 
directly at the thorough training of the lead- 
ers of the classes, the training class leaders, 
and the members of the Bible study commit- 
tees. Without conviction and efficiency upon 
the part of these men, large enrolments in 
classes mean little, and the whole system of 
Bible study becomes more or less a failure. 

The public session of the Institute, carefully 



156 World-Wide Bible Study 

planned to include in its attendance persons 
not in classes, is often one of the best agencies 
for renewing interest among people already 
enrolled in classes. Some of the most able 
professors and outside speakers should be 
included on the programs of these conferences. 
In some sections the Bible Institute has been 
limited to the training of Bible teachers. 
Three days have been given to vital matters 
relating exclusively to teachers. Such confer- 
ences have usually begun on Thursday even- 
ing, lasting through Sunday. In these Bible 
Institutes leaders and specialists have been 
secured to conduct discussions on topics like 
the following: 

The Field for Bible Study in the Individual In- 
stitution or Section. (In the discussion of such a 
topic the number of men in the community, or the 
number of men in the church, should be clearly con- 
trasted with the enrolment in Bible study.) 
The Bible Study Committee. 
The Qualifications of a Bible Teacher. 
Pedagogical Principles. 
Methods for Maintaining Attendance. 
The Bible Class as an Evangelizing Agency. 
Bible Courses and Bible Study Literature. 
Value of Daily Bible Study. 
How to Get Greatest Profit from Bible Conferences. 



Interest and Attendance 157 

Teacher Training Classes. 

The Bible and Intellectual Questions. . 

The Claims of the Bible Upon Thinking Men. 

The Formation of a Bible Study Policy. 

The Need, Importance and Benefit of Personal Bible 

Study. 
Planning the Bible Work in the Spring for the Ensuing 

Year. 
Vacation Bible Study. 
The Bible and Business Men. 
Successful Characteristics of a Bible Class. 
The Preparation of a Teacher. 
The Bible and Modern Journalism. 
The Social and Political Teachings of the Bible. 

Among the most effective and far-reaching 
of all the agencies for imparting stimulus, 
vision, and methods of Bible teaching have 
been the summer and winter student confer- 
ences. Continuing for ten days, these confer- 
ences are held each year in various sections of 
North America. Some of the best Biblical 
scholars and trained Bible specialists give their 
entire time at these gatherings to coaching 
teachers in the courses which they are to teach 
during the coming year. It is deemed abso- 
lutely essential to have present at these con- 
ferences the Bible study chairman, Bible study 
committeemen, and the men who are to lead 
classes the following season. Before starting 



158 World-Wide Bible Study 

to the conference, these prospective leaders are 
carefully assigned to the divisions appropriate 
to their work. The Bible class hour at the 
conference furnishes, as far as possible, a re- 
production of the actual work of a college 
Bible group — real preparation, real study, real 
discussion, and real interest in men. 

Such conferences for Bible study and train- 
ing might profitably be arranged for men and 
women of other communities and interests. A 
portion of the annual convention of certain 
organizations might reasonably be set apart 
for this purpose. The value of such a plan is 
apparent when we consider that the state or 
annual meeting or convention of many Chris- 
tian organizations furnishes the only occasion 
in the year for assembling delegates from the 
entire section. The arrangement of a day fol- 
lowing, or during such conventions, in which 
delegates will combine in considering the or- 
ganization and development of Bible study in 
their respective communities would be certain 
to result in far-reaching influences. 

Many Bible classes fail to sustain the attend- 
ance of members because the study chosen is 
not of interest to the particular group. In 



Interest and Attendance 159 

some cases no book or outline is used, and the 
class fails because of the lack of a tangible 
mode of study. A Bible course should both 
give incentive to the study of the subject mat- 
ter of the Bible, and also furnish suggestion 
relative to the formation of habits and methods 
of study. A wise Bible leadership will study 
thoroughly the character of the constituency 
to be reached, and select such books as are best 
suited to attract and to profit. 

In the localities with varied classes of stu- 
dents, the presentation of several Bible courses 
has been generally commended by experience. 
The interest of some persons has been caught 
by the social teachings of the New Testament, 
when its spiritual message did not awaken at- 
tention. Likewise groups of men who have 
not been enthusiastic over the life of the Apos- 
tle Paul have found the life of Job or Amos 
uniquely fascinating. But in those smaller 
communities where the number of Bible 
groups which it is possible to conduct is lim- 
ited the number of courses offered should 
likewise be limited. 

It is generally conceded that the study of 
the life and teachings of Jesus Christ is the 



l6o World-Wide Bible Study 

natural beginning. Jesus, the "way, the truth, 
and the Hfe," so pervades all Scripture that 
through him the Word of God must be pri- 
marily studied and understood. 

The commanding result of Jesus' work and 
life, as found in the history of the early church 
in the Acts and Epistles, and especially in the 
life of Paul, has formed a second stage of Bible 
study among thoughtful men. 

A third series of Bible studies, which has 
proved its power to engage and hold the minds 
and hearts of Bible students, embraces subjects 
in the Old Testament, such as character studies 
of these "great pioneers of civihzation,'' the 
unfolding of the riches of the Wisdom Litera- 
ture, the Psalms, and the study of the great 
Prophets, especially in light of the relation of 
their messages to modern world problems. 

A fourth set of Bible studies, which has been 
used by thousands, relates to the fundamental 
principles of Christianity revealed in the Bible ; 
the spiritual, social, and political teachings of 
Jesus and his followers ; the essential and basic 
truths of the Apostolic Gospel, and practical 
discussions regarding the meaning of the 
Christian religion, expressed in such terms as 



Interest and Attendance i6i 

the love of God, prayer, sin, temptation and 
forgiveness. 

No Bible study department should be satis- 
fied until it has furnished its students with 
courses representing the full sweep of the 
Kingdom of God through both Old and New 
Testaments. While attention may, with good 
reason, be focused for a single year upon one 
great aspect of Bible truth, this plan should be 
safeguarded by presenting more than one 
course the following year, that some adequate 
knowledge of the whole Bible may be assured 
to students. Where the Bible study depart- 
ment is small, it may be advisable to offer each 
year one course of study in the New Testa- 
ment, and one course in the Old Testament, 
changing the courses offered with sufficient 
frequency to give the student a knowledge of 
the entire field of both the Old and the New 
Testament Scriptures. 

Above all, let no course be chosen simply be- 
cause it is easy, or because it requires little 
sacrifice of time for preparation. The general 
disuse by college men of mere "Bible Read- 
ings," together with the vastly increased em- 
ployment of books on Bible study requiring 



1 62 World-Wide Bible Study 

regular and thoughtful study, is good proof of 
the fact that in Biblical education, as, indeed, 
in the securing of all kinds of knowledge, men 
are not unwilling to pay a considerable price 
for those things which are of recognized 
value ; "He that loseth his life for my sake shall 
find it." It is insulting alike to the Bible and 
to student intelligence to assume that the Book 
which has engaged the most profound atten- 
tion of thoughtful men for two thousand years 
can be discovered and made profitable without 
hard and continued study. The busiest men 
will stop to really work on the Bible when mere 
"reading" will not allure them. 

Biblical scholars, college professors, clergy- 
men and prominent laymen have been of in- 
estimable service to Bible departments through 
lectures and talks upon subjects like the fol- 
lowing : 

How to Study the Bible. 

The Bible as a Factor in Determining Life Work. 

The Bible and the Prayer Life. 

The Bible in Its Relation to Ethics. 

The Truth of the Scriptures as Confirmed by the 

Ancient Monuments. 
The Apocrypha. 
The Bible Related to Modern Business Life. 



Interest and Attendance 163 

The Bible as Literature. 

The Relation of the Bible to the Life of the Nation. 

Contribution of Scholarship to the Understanding of 

the Bible. 
Fundamental Principles of Bible Teaching. 
The Origin and Nature of the Bible. 
The Social Teachings of the Earlier Prophets. 
The Bible and the Church. 
The Value of Regular Bible Study. 

Such talks are often given once each month, 
being widely advertised through the entire 
community. Questionnaires of much helpful- 
ness may be arranged to follow the lectures. 
These occasions afford an excellent opportu- 
nity for bringing together members of the 
various Bible classes for stimulation and fel- 
lowship. They also open the way for the in- 
teresting of persons not already associated 
with the Bible work. Every Bible department 
should employ some such means for keeping 
alive the interest in the study throughout the 
year. 

A few well-chosen reference books should be 
available in every Bible department, for the 
use of the teachers. It is encouraging to note 
that in over three hundred institutions of 
higher learning, the foundation of a Bible ref- 



164 World-Wide Bible Study 

erence library has already been laid. Many a 
teacher has discovered the glory of his calling 
through the reading of a great book related to 
the course he is trying to teach. 

The Bible group has been found a potent 
means for evangelism. Meetings which 
awaken the spiritual life prove also to be among 
the most truly successful agencies for engag- 
ing and maintaining interest in Bible study. 
Those institutions which plan each season a 
series of special religious meetings intended to 
bring men to decision for the Christian life, 
find the sustaining of attendance in Bible 
classes a less difficult problem than do those 
institutions w^here the men's deeper sense of 
moral and religious need is not stirred. Every 
series of evangelistic meetings should be at- 
tended by meetings for emphasis upon Bible 
study. In fact, the supreme weakness of many 
excellent evangelistic workers has consisted in 
their failure to conserve the results of their 
work by giving proper time and effort to 
secure the formation of constructive habits 
of Bible study and prayer on the part 
of the new Christians. It is an augury 
of the more permanent value of evangel- 




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Interest and Attendance 165 

istic effort that the most truly success- 
ful workers in this department plan regularly 
to give at least one day following or during a 
series of addresses on evangelism to engaging 
and organizing the persons interested. 

At times the Bible work has been greatly 
assisted through the holding of dinners at- 
tended by the leaders, members of the classes 
and students not enrolled in Bible groups. Spe- 
cial efforts are made to secure a representative 
attendance of the most influential men of the 
section. The after-dinner addresses often relate 
to the practical value of the English Bible to 
men in business, college, and professional life. 
This dinner has been successfully followed by 
a recanvass of the entire community for Bible 
study. 

Receptions given in the homes of prominent 
persons in the town or city have also been in- 
strumental in sustaining the interest in the 
Bible classes. Such gatherings for social pur- 
poses are especially necessary under the system 
of small classes since the members otherwise 
rarely meet the entire Bible study constituency. 

Among the most pleasant and most effec- 
tive of all these social gatherings have been 



i66 World-Wide Bible Study 

the occasions when the men of a single group 
assembled for a dinner or for a social even- 
ing. Such gatherings have afforded unique 
opportunities for the men to become better 
acquainted and have largely increased the esprit 
de corps among the members. The testimony 
of many men has been that these occasions, 
when the men of a single Bible class met to- 
gether, were among the most satisfactory and 
delightful of any during their entire college 
course. Their value in keeping up the interest 
of the class cannot be questioned. 

In certain institutions where fraternity Bible 
study has been successfully maintained, the 
leaders of the fraternity Bible classes have taken 
dinner together on Sundays, this meeting being 
held in rotation at the various chapter houses. 
Following the dinner the leader of the normal 
training class has met with the student lead- 
ers to receive reports of the classes and to aid 
them in preparation for the coming week's 
work. This plan has not only been the means 
of bringing together socially the men of the 
Greek letter fraternities, but it has also con- 
tributed largely to the interesting of all the 
members of the chapters in Bible study. 



Interest and Attendance 167 

A thorough appreciation of the group idea 
has greatly increased the quahty and continu- 
ity of Bible study among men. Five groups 
of ten men each, with a leader from their own 
number, have succeeded in holding the inter- 
est of the men when a large class of fifty men 
has gone to pieces in a few months. 

The ''group plan" is an imitation of Jesus' 
method and spirit of teaching and working 
with the ''inner circle" of twelve disciples. 
The Master left the multitude to devote Him- 
self to the education and training of a dozen 
men. He was their friend. He was Himself 
with them — ^perfectly natural — He did not 
preach to them — He talked — reasoned — dis- 
cussed with them the great teachings concern- 
ing His Kingdom. He used the Socratic 
method of questions and answers. He was 
very informal. He was very earnest. He had 
a message. Yet He was never unbalanced — 
always thoughtful, tranquil, and rich in ideas. 
His illustrations were drawn from nature and 
life near at hand. He was never discouraged 
— never impatient with the members of His 
group. One of His chief methods of prepara- 
tion was prayer. His sympathies were notice- 



1 68 World-Wide Bible Study 

ably broad. He evidently loved the men in 
His small circle and ''loved them unto the 
end." The secret of Jesus' success with the 
first Bible group was in His pre-eminent talent 
for self-renunciation. This secret was given 
in His own words: ''He that loveth his life 
shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this 
world shall keep it unto life eternal. Whoso- 
ever would come after me, let him deny him- 
self, and take up his cross daily and follow 
me." 

This idea of self-denying service was not a 
theory with Jesus as a leader. It was a prac- 
tise and it made him irresistible. However 
great He might have been as a teacher, had 
not His actual life for His disciples been "full 
of grace and truth" He would have failed. 
"He gave himself" for the men in His group. 

This is our ideal for the Bible class. Three 
thousand groups of Bible students in North 
American colleges are just beginning to grasp 
it — its vast possibilities for the discerning of 
truth, for deep friendship, for mutual and in- 
sistent prayer, for helping one another, for 
bringing men who do not know Him into the 
saving presence of Jesus Christ our Lord. 



Interest and Attendance 169 

Indeed, the supreme method of ''maintaining 
interest and attendance in Bible classes" is a 
group of eight or ten students sitting con- 
sciously each week at the feet of the great 
"Teacher come from God." 



CHAPTER X 

THE BIBLE AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

OELIGIOUS education, like "all Gaul," 
may be divided into three parts — clear 
ideas, spiritual culture, and practice. To each 
division the Bible holds vital relation. 

Clear Ideas. — John Locke said that the first 
step in education consisted in getting clear 
ideas about a subject. The Bible has been an 
indispensable adjunct to religious education in 
furnishing it with clarifying facts concerning 
God, man, and the human soul. It has given 
the clearest idea obtainable, outside of experi- 
ence, of religion, which is the life of God in 
the soul of man. In religious education, a 
vivid mental conception of these facts and 
relationships is fundamental. 

There has never been a period when the 
Bible presented to religious culture such def- 
inite contribution of coherent and intelligent 
ideas as it presents to-day. The Bible was 
never so truly understood as at present. The 
170 



The Bible and Education 171 

teachings of Jesus Christ have never been ap- 
plied to life as a form of religious education 
and practice as we are beginning to apply them 
in this twentieth century. The Bible is being 
discovered in its large meanings. The funda- 
mental laws of righteousness are traced from 
Genesis to Revelation. People are securing 
perspective in religious teachings, and are ac- 
quiring the ability to place first things first in 
their use of the Christian Scriptures. 

It is undoubtedly true that the Bible was 
read more generally by our forefathers, es- 
pecially by those who lived at the time of the 
English Revision, 300 years ago, than it is read 
by us to-day. And there are reasons for this. 
Among others we note the enormous prog- 
ress in printing, which has produced for mod- 
ern readers a mass of literature in newspapers, 
magazines, and books quite unknown to people 
of former days. It is doubtless true that any 
family having a Bible to-day possesses ten 
other books, in addition to current magazines 
and newspaper literature, for every one book 
the homes of our Fatherland contained three 
centuries ago. 

I venture to say. however, that the Bible did 



172 World-Wide Bible Study 

not then afford so clear a revelation of God's 
ideas as it affords to men and women to-day. 
We have only to turn to some of the annals of 
those former days to appreciate the change. 
King James, for example, under whose reign 
the English Bible was revised, and who was 
able to fill his letters and speeches with as 
many Scriptural verses and allusions as any 
Puritan preacher, deduced from the instance 
of the Sadducees, who denied the existence of 
angels and spirits, that all who refused to ac- 
cept the existence of witches stood condemned 
by Scripture. It was King James, also, who, 
by Bible warrant, had Bartholemew Legate 
burned at the stake in Smithfield, March 16, 
161 2, because Legate said he had not prayed 
to Christ for more than seven years. 

Francis Bacon, whom Isaac Walton called 
"the great secretary of nature and all learn- 
ing," and who in his great work on the "Ad- 
vancement of Learning" quotes from fully 
one-half of the sixty-six books of the Bible, 
interpreted Zechariah 13 \ y ("I will smite 
the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered") 
as meaning the destruction of the English peo- 
ple in the year 1602; while Burton, one of the 



The Bible and Education 173 

able writers of the early seventeenth century, 
in his ''Anatomy of Melancholy," published in 
1 62 1, introduced Ezekiel and Moses among 
the Arab physicians of the middle ages, taking 
much space in his treatise to prove from 
Scripture that a sick man must employ prayer 
and physic together, not relying exclusively 
upon either one, adding the recommendation 
that "the devil is an expert physician." 

To be sure, we are only just beginning truly 
to interpret the Bible as a means of religious 
culture. We have great advances yet to make. 
Behold the difference in the attention given to 
Bible interpretation, and the interpretation of 
civil or criminal law or of questions of inter- 
national policy! Conferences of scholars and 
men interested in public welfare for the pur- 
pose of discovering the meaning of the Bible 
and the propagation of its teachings are not 
yet common enough, though it is our belief 
that within the next twenty-five years the pres- 
ent gratifying Bible study interest will eventu- 
ate in quite as important and influential atten- 
tion as is now evinced in industrial and eco- 
nomic subjects. 

The need of such general study on the part 



174 World-Wide Bible Study 

of the American people is everywhere apparent. 
Even Christians, ministers, and laymen alike 
often search the Scriptures for texts rather 
than truth, for promises rather than knowl- 
edge, for comfort in disaster rather than a 
clear and comprehensive idea of God's revela- 
tion which will keep the soul in the light con- 
tinually. We may not go far to find men who 
still treat the Bible as an unworldly relic, a 
fetish, or sacred receptacle of visionary or 
blind mysticism, dulling the eyes of the mind. 
For example, I met a man not long ago who 
was popularly supposed to possess brains, who 
took an hour of my time to try to prove to 
me by the Old Testament that the soul of his 
uncle, recently deceased, inhabited one of the 
fixed stars. 

Yet, on the whole, the Bible is exerting an 
enlarging and more wholesome influence upon 
the education and religion of our times. It is 
being studied and explained with clearer judg- 
ment and with more direct relation to life as 
it actually exists. The Bible is taken less as 
specific direction, and more as universally in- 
spiring in the sphere of the ethical, the social, 
the political, the practical world's work. We do 



The Bible and Education 175 

not appeal to the Scriptures as much as our 
forefathers did, says George H. Gilbert, but 
we listen to them more, and we listen to the 
gospel more than to the law or the prophets. 
Hence, our type of Christianity in 191 1 is 
more humane and gentle, more sympathetic 
with all truth, more joyous, and more deeply 
stamped with Christ's law of service than was 
that of 161 1. 

Manifestly, then, the need to-day is for men 
who will get clearer ideas about God and re- 
ligion; not from a dogmatic creed, not from 
the Greek and Latin Fathers of the early 
church, not from a popular shallow interpreta- 
tion, but from the Bible itself, intelligently and 
patiently comparing Scripture with Scripture. 
Such leadership is opportune and bound to win, 
especially if it is characterized by spirituality, 
strict honesty, breadth of mind, sympathetic 
appreciation of historical situations, by the re- 
solve not to talk beyond one's experience, and 
by the sensible adjustment of divine truth to 
the large-spirited, generous life of the twen- 
tieth century. We are not to break with 
authoritative or institutional forms, but to see 
the Christ clearly, to appropriate him per- 



176 World-WidQ Bible Study 

sonally, to grasp fervently his teachings in their 
appHcations to all kinds and conditions of men, 
then to extend these convictions vigorously and 
daringly: with such a program real progress 
will be made in conforming the kingdom of the 
world to the kingdom of our Lord and of his 
Christ. 

Spiritual Culture. — But it is not wholly 
through a more perfectly interpreted Bible that 
the religious education of our times has prof- 
ited. This has been a means only toward in- 
dividual religion. The Bible is constantly and 
increasingly influencing the imperishable life 
of the spirit. Through regular Bible habits, 
contemplation, employment of Bible truth in 
the fight for character, in hours of dark sorrow 
and misfortune, and in a hundred other ways 
known to the secret heart of man, the Christian 
Scriptures are becoming a tower of spiritual 
defense and a refuge in the time of storm. 

The Psalmist was more than mystically right 
when he said, "Thy words have I hid in my 
heart, that I might not sin against thee." He 
took the Divine Word into his heart as a re- 
minder of his high destiny, and of his godlike, 
spiritual relationships. 



The Bible and Education 177 

Men pursue broken purposes and half truths 
largely because they have not kept before them 
vividly enough the comprehensive aim of their 
life, which should be harmonious. The entire 
trend of modern affairs seems to militate 
against a man's getting free time for com- 
munion w^ith God. 

Indeed, it is this torpor of the spirit v^hich 
is most to be feared, for it is in itself temporal 
and eternal ruin; it needs no future judgment. 
If the hold upon the abiding realities is loos- 
ened, the student becomes easily a prey to his 
worst self. The man may be industrious and 
automatic, a hustler of many organized 
schemes, efficient even, but his soul is dead 
while he lives — no external education or suc- 
cess can save a man who has lost consciousness 
of God. 

This kind of religious education — spiritual 
culture — comes when the man is alone with his 
deepest loyalties; it comes to the thoughtful in- 
dividual, not to the man who is always in the 
crowd. The best education is often that which 
one receives in some vague walk beneath the 
stars, and which is quite disassociated with 
schooh and men. 



178 World-Wide Bible Study 

It remains for every man to hear for him- 
self the authoritative voice of Christ to his own 
consciousness. In the deepest meaning of spir- 
itual experience every man, like our Saviour, 
must tread the wine-press alone, yet not for- 
saken, for then there appears new light from 
the unseen world — a "vision splendid" of him, 
whom, having not seen, we love. 

The weakness of many modern schemes of 
religious education lies in their tendency to 
produce a type of religionists, what the old 
Covenanters used to call "rank conformity," 
every man like every other man; perfectly con- 
ventional and absolutely respectable, but stereo- 
typed, a kind of wooden Indian religionist — 
safe, but motionless. The man who has failed 
to think through his own spiritual life and 
experience is bound to lack in originality and 
in general viewpoint. If you know his friends 
and hear them talk, you will know exactly how 
the man will talk. He never gives you a sur- 
prise by a new, vivid touch of creative indi- 
vidualism. He never leaves the impression of 
having seen any bold vision on a lonely mount. 
His sense of mission is not born of God, else 
it would be more irresistible. 



The Bible and Education 179 

As leaders of moral and religious training 
we need to guard sedulously against over-con- 
tact. The necessity of being alone, to think, 
to grow, to be conscious of the Christ life, is 
desperate in our modern business and profes- 
sional warfare. We take unheedingly the 
ready-made principles of the majority, espec- 
ially in religious matters, even when these prin- 
ciples discredit the authoritative voice of Christ 
to our own souls. We so continually ask what 
other men think because we do not have force 
or patience to think for ourselves. Not simply 
in being a well-brushed, docile, regulation 
churchgoing citizen is the aim of religious edu- 
cation fulfilled, but also in being a man of spir- 
itual vision, in disregarding at times the shallow 
prattle and babble about him, going straight 
through the line to his own duty. To raise up 
in our churches this sort of leadership by being 
such leaders ourselves — living commentaries on 
our printed Bibles and religious educational 
theories — this is worthy objective. 

Practice. — But the chief meeting between 
the Bible and religious training should be in 
practice. The conflicts of the soul are not in 
private only— neither are they merely intel- 



i8o World-Wide Bible Study 

lectual — they occur on the battle-ground of the 
real world's life. Religious education may be 
thought of in two sections, the discovery by 
the mind and heart of the higher truth about 
God and man, and the placing of this truth 
against real life. It is the difference between 
holding a conference and conducting a cam- 
paign, between seeing Mt. Blanc and climbing it. 
A sincere man said to me recently : *'I am get- 
ting tired of conferences — I have about decided 
to stop hearing further about my duty until I 
have done something more tangible along the 
lines I already know." Practice is a far more 
intricate and desperate business than the hard- 
est theorizing. Life was not meant to be a 
holiday. It is filled with hard, difficult work 
and circumstances requiring all our hidden re- 
sources, but behind it all are the wonderful 
compensating experiences for the man of for- 
titude and stamina who is determined to see 
the "stars shine through his cypress-trees." It 
is invigorating to confront our moral and edu- 
cational policies by the question which Kipling 
directs to the much-talking Tomlinson, who 
represents the modern man who does not live 
in himself, but only in a secondhand way 



The Bible and Education i8i 

through books or theories. When TomHnson 
was asked at the gate of heaven by St. Peter 
concerning his good deeds, KipHng says he 
"grew white as a rain-washed bone," and 
could only refer to what Mr. Pater might call 
his "sensations and ideas." 

"This I have read in a book," he said, "and that was 
told to me, 

And this I have thought that another man thought of 
a Prince in Muscovy" — 

The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade 
him clear the path, 

And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and 
wrath. 

"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he 
said, "and the tale is yet to run; 

By the worth of the body that once ye had, give an- 
swer — what ha' ye done?" 

This question takes us with our Bibles and 
religious culture out of the sphere of theory 
into the grim realm of practice. We are bound 
to be practical, and ask, What are we doing 
about it? Is there anything we can really do 
to bring this newly-discovered Bible through 
the medium of fresh religious experience to 
everyday life, moving on thereby from being 
interpreters of religion to being the practical 
leaders of men? 



CHAPTER XI 

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE BIBLE IN OUR 
MODERN LIFE? 

'T'HERE are at least four things that call for 
immediate accomplishment in the practical 
extension of Bible interest to our modern life. 
The Bible in Family Life. — First, there 
is desperate need for men to lead in a 
crusade to bring the Bible and religious edu- 
cation into the home — that home which is 
being despoiled by materialistic tendencies 
from without and weakened by the decadence 
of family religion from within. Mrs. Cor- 
nelia A. P. Comers' recent indictment of youth 
and American religious culture in the home 
is not wholly overdrawn. She addresses thus 
our American youth: 

"In the wrack of the beliefs, your parents managed to 

retain their own ingrained principles of conduct. But 

not knowing what to teach you, they taught you nothing 

whole-heartedly. Thus you have the distinction of 

182 



The Bible in Our Modern Life 183 

growing up with a spiritual training less in quantity 
and more diluted in quality than any Christian genera- 
tions for 1900 years." 

Now, however, that these religious transi- 
tion days of which Mrs. Comers speaks are 
seemingly passing, now when the religious 
"stress and storm" have made way for days 
of constructive beHef and new experience, it 
is for the broad-minded, thoughtful Christians 
in the home to teach the meaning of the gos- 
pel in its twentieth century expression. Par- 
ents should be interested to meet with Sunday- 
school teachers in classes for teacher-training. 
We can assist in reviving that fine and beauti- 
ful art of Bible story telling. We can estab- 
lish regular times for memorizing the match- 
less poetry and imagery of the Bible, which 
will return in later memory with a new 
meaning, as children grown to manhood 
and womanhood come to need it. Indeed, 
if young people do not memorize the Bi- 
ble in youth and in the home, they never do, 
for there is no time for memory work in the 
Sunday-school, and the day-school omits al- 
together Bible and religious education. It can 
also be revealed to fathers and mothers, in 



1 84 World-Wide Bible Study 

special conferences for Bible study and relig- 
ioijs education, how they themselves may dis- 
cover the Bible by means of modern, attrac- 
tive Bible studies. Indications of new inter- 
est in adult Bible study are increasingly 
apparent. We can help to usher in the day 
when the modern business man father will 
not merely take out his religion in the name 
of his wife, but will be a member of a new 
laymen's teaching ministry. 

The Bible and Education in the Public 
School. — Second, we can renew the efforts 
heretofore spasmodic to take the Bible to the 
public schools. 

At the really wonderful and impressive 
tercentenary celebration of the King James 
Version of the English Bible held in Carnegie 
Hall, New York, on the evening of the 25th 
of April, 191 1, there was no greater enthusiasm, 
if one could judge by the applause, in the en- 
tire evening, than when Professor Phelps, of 
Yale, spoke as follows: 

"I am of the opinion that every class in every common 
school should begin the day by reading a chapter of 
the Bible. Everything in our civilization is founded 
on the Bible, and to say it is sectarian is to talk the 



The Bible in Our Modern Life 185 

most foolish nonsense." "No one," he continued, 
"should be admitted to the universities of our country 
without being able to pass an examination on the Old 
Testament stories." 

Men are needed to inaugurate and conduct 
sane and impartial agitation along this line. 
In India, students and educators have learned 
the value of public discussions; by talking, by 
writing, by conference, and then also by frank 
(at times almost too frank) speech they se- 
cure their ends. Public opinion must be 
aroused on this question in America. Noth- 
ing but the tide of popular and democratic 
feeling will change the conservatism, often the 
arbitrariness, of school officials, who, in many 
cases, are afraid of the mere shadow of of- 
fense to different sects in their constituency. 

But members of school boards are begin- 
ning to be impressed with the Bible movement 
in the colleges. Continued invitations come 
to visit the great city common schools of our 
land to tell the boys of college Bible interests. 
If I mistake not, by carrying the Bible to the 
common education of our American youth, by 
giving it a place in the body of general knowl- 
edge, so that all education shall be religious 



1 86 World-Wide Bible Study 

education in the largest sense, we are on the 
road to solving the practical problems of re- 
ligious culture. 

Bible Study for the Church. — ^We must all 
assist in taking the Bible to the church and 
the modern Sunday-school. There is a wide- 
spread and growing sense of need on the part 
of ministers and church Bible teachers; first, 
for the clear presentation of the principles upon 
which Bible study should be conducted in our 
time; second, for courses of study and methods 
that fit these principles. Third, for well- 
trained leaders and teachers. 

What definite things can be suggested toward 
the betterment of present conditions? Prac- 
tical and interesting courses of studies may be" 
presented to church laymen. The present stu- 
dent courses by Professor Bos worth and others 
in the hands of pastors have revolutionized 
Bible interest in scores of churches. The 
course of Bible study by Professor Jeremiah 
W. Jenks, on the "Social Teaching of Jesus," 
has marked an epoch in the progress of mod- 
ern Bible study, especially in its appeal to non- 
Christian men. These studies have been 
translated into different languages, and, where- 



The Bible in Our Modern Life 187 

ever they have gone, under proper leadership, 
they have been the means of creating inter- 
est among a coterie of persons heretofore ut- 
terly indifferent to Bible study. Bible studies 
that begin with human interest, and that at- 
tach the subject-matter of the Christian Scrip- 
tures to modern questions and fascinating life 
problems, assist much in revealing the Bible 
to churchmen as an interesting book. 

Last year approximately one-half million of 
young men were enrolled in large organized 
Bible classes for men in the church. But you 
say: "How many of these men were really 
studying the Bible?" A very small percentage, 
doubtless. We should learn how to bring real 
Bible culture into such organized classes. In 
certain cases, the past year, I have known 
young men in these large classes successfully 
interested in Bible study through a supper 
held in the church parish house on a week- 
day evening. After supper a half -hour or more 
was spent in small groups, discussing the re- 
lation of the Bible theme presented on Sun- 
day to such problems as charities questions, 
rural problems, boys' clubs, sanitation, immi- 
gration, wealth, temperance questions, church 



1 88 World-Wide Bible Study 

attendance, etc. Would it not be possible for 
able laymen, or men who have been trained 
to lead groups in college, to choose in their 
home church eight or ten of the most com- 
petent business or professional men, form 
them into a training class, meet with them 
once a week, and send them forth to inaugurate 
and conduct groups of men in the church and 
the congregation ? Henry B. Wright, of Yale, 
who spends his summer vacation in a small 
town in Massachusetts, has been able during 
the summer to enlist practically the entire com- 
munity in Bible study through a similar 
method. He gave to the people what is more 
important than facts, namely, a new point of 
view. 

During the past year also, in college towns, 
a co-operating committee has been formed in 
a number of cases consisting of pastors, Sun- 
day-school superintendents, the General Sec- 
retary of the college Young Men's Christian 
Association, a faculty man, and one or two 
prominent laymen, the business of which com- 
mittee has been to unify the Bible and relig- 
ious activities of the college and the churches. 
There was found to exist a lamentable lack 




H 



CO 






CO 

S 

r3 



The Bible in Our Modern Life 189 

of knowledge on the part of each section as to 
what the other section was doing in Bible 
teaching. There was much dupHcation dis- 
covered, and a dire lack of system and intelli- 
gent statesmanship in conducting the Bible 
work of the community. 

Another plan finding favor in a number 
of places has been that of forming an As- 
sociation Bible Department in the church for 
students who attend the church classes. This 
Association Department is practically a section 
of the Bible study department of the College 
Christian Association, only the classes are held 
in the church instead of upon the campus. 
The use of college student methods, and out- 
lines, and the general superintendence of these 
classes by the college Bible leadership vastly 
increase the probability of interesting students 
in the church, as well as giving an idea of the 
need of church leadership in religious educa- 
tion for days after graduation. 

Why should we not hold Bible Institutes 
in the local church, or for a group of churches 
in our large cities, much as we hold Bible In- 
stitutes for students and faculty men in the 
academic communities? The immediate op- 



I90 World-Wide Bible Study 

portunities which are opened to all of us in 
this line are many and varied. 

Bible Study and Religious Education in Col- 
leges. — Fourth, what practical measures for 
rehgious training He inherent in our college 
Bible study? To be sure, we have reason to 
note here certain satisfactory progress, espe- 
cially as we consider that the present interest 
in voluntary Biblical education in the colleges 
is largely the growth of the last decade. In 
the college year of 191 1 one in seven of the 
college men of North America were meeting in 
weekly Bible classes. Furthermore, chiefly 
through the influence of this North American 
Bible Movement, similar Bible study has been 
inaugurated in seventeen other student nations. 
Indeed, the extension of this work to other 
lands is just commencing. Ross A. Hadley, 
formerly one of the International Student Bi- 
ble Secretaries, whom this movement sent out 
last year to become the International Bible 
Secretary of India, writes with enthusiasm of 
Bible study possibilities among three hundred 
millions of people. The next ten years should 
see at least ten countries thus supplied with 
national Bible experts. 



The Bible in Our Modern Life 191 

A Statesmanlike Leader of Bible Interests 
in Every Institution. — The entire college is 
accessible as never before, but it is not acces- 
sible without a leader who possesses both vis- 
ion and courage. This Student Bible Move- 
ment, like Diogenes, is looking for men who 
can sound forth a real Marseillaise of "Let us 
March." As I recall the way in which this 
work has been founded in the great centers of 
learning, I think of its history in the terms of 
biography. I think of men whose leadership 
has been and is continuing to be wrought into 
the character and history of thousands of 
North American collegians who are now out 
in the thick of the fight, doing the world's 
work, continually and deeply influenced in all 
they do and say by their example and leader- 
ship. 

Faculty Men as Bible Promoters. — The 25,- 
000 faculty men in the institutions of higher 
learning of the United States and Canada 
should be speedily enlisted for personal Bible 
study and for assistance in training Bible 
teachers and leading Bible classes. 

At a session of a Bible Institute last spring 
at Cornell, a professor stated that in his judg- 



192 World-Wide Bible Study 

ment the Bible movement in colleges should 
begin with the faculty. It is significant that at 
this institution we hear of plans to secure a 
Bible class of college professors the coming 
year in the use of the studies on the ''Making 
of a Nation." Here is a new campaign in 
motion. Every serious collegian should have 
some part in it. We can never fully win any 
institution for religious education without 
winning the college faculty. We can take 
nothing for granted concerning faculty inter- 
est until we have really secured it in active 
measures. We need a campaign for these men 
as we do for students. To win one leading 
popular college professor or college president 
for Bible study is to influence often an entire 
generation of college students. The extent 
of college prestige as exerted by a popular 
faculty man is indescribably great. It is the 
power of personality which is always so much 
more influential than the power of method. 

Not long ago I attended a dinner of frater- 
nity men at the University of Minnesota. A 
man beside me was expatiating on the 
dwindling influence of college teachers over 
their students. While he was speaking, ex- 



The Bible in Our Modern Life 193 

President Northrup ("Prexy Northrup'') 
came in. Every man was standing in an in- 
stant and the cheers and applause were fairly 
overwhelming. When the men were seated a 
toast was proposed to the beloved president. 
The man who proposed it used the words of 
that beautiful little quatrain composed by a 
Minnesota man entitled *'When Prexy Prays :" 

"When Prexy prays our heads all bow, 
A sense of peace smooths every brow, 
No fears annoy, no whispers raise 
At chapel time when Prexy prays." 

What might it not mean for any university 
to have its Biblical education swept into the 
main current of college life by the active sup- 
port of such popular and reverenced teachers! 
The enlargement of such men is a multiplying 
work which has been too much neglected. It 
should take a large place in our future plans. 

Bible Study and the World's Education. — 
How shall we carry the Bible and the religious 
education attendant upon it to the world ? 

Our churches and institutions of learning 
are already leading the way in attaching their 
Bible groups to some form of service in the 



194 World-Wide Bible Study 

outside world. This opens an enormous field 
of possible activity, both for usefulness to 
society and also for the maintaining of inter- 
est in Bible truth. Last year from one univer- 
sity 150 men went out from their Bible study 
groups into active work for the poor in New 
York, and to organize and conduct rural Sun- 
day-schools and clubs for men in communities 
near the college town. One of these students 
said to me enthusiastically, "Why, we find that 
Jesus' principles really work." He was dis- 
covering Biblical education in the terms of 
service to the world. 

But it is not enough for us to interest stu- 
dents in Biblical education for the outside 
world only while they are in college. The 
result of this student Bible movement should 
be a profound world-wide awakening in Bib- 
lical education through the influence of college 
graduates. Indeed, the next step in the 
Bible Movement of North America, in my 
judgment, will be to carry the Bible to the 
whole church, to the state, to missions, to edu- 
cational institutions of every stripe, and to the 
business and professional world. Who can 
help more in this than college and university 



The Bible in Our Modern Life 195 

men who have been trained in thinking, in 
teaching, in organizing BibHcal study and edu- 
cation? Each year there are being trained 
3,000 college students to lead Bible classes and 
to conduct Bible departments in our seats of 
higher learning. What for? For college life 
simply? No! For life also, for the field of 
the world, for the equipment of laymen in a 
new teaching ministry. 

Modern evangelism waits upon this ministry 
of constructive character building, and is quite 
inadequate without it. Social service is aim- 
less and hollow when deprived of personal 
religion and a growing conviction about God 
and the spiritual responsibility that Bible cul- 
ture affords. Missionary propaganda even 
now is in danger of becoming merely a big 
philanthropic trust without spiritual vitaliza- 
tion enough to make it a living power. 

The time is opportune for taking the Bible 
to the world. The aroused moral and ethical 
conscience of the people of all nations has 
opened the way for the Christian Scriptures. 
There is a new tendency, a new quest, and a 
new thirst after God on the part of the average 
man. 



196 World-Wide Bible Study 

"Lo thy sons whom thou sendest away. They come 
gathered from the west unto the east by the word of 
the Holy One, rejoicing in the remembrance of God." 

The question is a personal one as well as 
an institutional one for ever}^ man. What part 
am I to take in this presentation of Biblical 
Christianity to the life, to the soul of the mod- 
ern world ? 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 

WORLD-WIDE WITNESS TO THE BIBLE 

The value of a book, like that of an in- 
stitution, is determined by its influence in shap- 
ing the careers of men. The Bible has always 
furnished inspiration to great men. It has in- 
creasingly maintained throughout the centur- 
ies its hold upon the leaders of civilization. 
The cloud of witnesses which can be sum- 
moned from all periods and nations to prove 
the inestimable riches of the Christian Scrip- 
tures supplies an irresistible argument for the 
world-wide value and adaptability of the 
Bible. What other book could command such 
testimony as the following from the world- 
field of educated men? 

Witness to the Bible in Literature 
AND Education 

The Honorable James Bryce, British Ambassador to 
the United States, to the World's Sixth Sunday-school 
Convention: "Had I been able to be with you, I 
should have said some words regarding the special 

199 



200 Appendix 

and urgent need which seems to exist in our time for 
maintaining in the general scheme of education the 
place of religious instruction, and especially a proper 
knowledge of the Bible." 

Nothing else so sinews up the intellect, so clarifies 
the perception, so enlarges the views, so purifies the 
taste, so quickens the ima.gination, strengthens the 
understanding, and educates the whole man. The 
humblest day laborer who saturates his mind with 
this celestial schoolbook becomes a superior man to 
his comrades — not merely a purer man, but a clearer- 
headed man. It was the feeding on this honey from 
heaven which gave to the Puritans their wonderful 
sagacity as well as their unconquerable loyalty to the 
right. Simply as an educator the Scriptures ought to 
be read in every schoolhouse, and there ought to be a 
chair of Bible instruction in every college. — Theodore 
L. Cuyler, D. D. 

By the study of what other book could children be 
so much humanized and made to feel that each figure 
in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, 
but a momentary space in the intervals between two 
eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses of all 
time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, 
even as they also are earning their payment for their 
work. The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the 
poor and the oppressed, Down to modern times no 
state had a constitution in which the interests of the 
people are so largely taken into account, in which the 
duties so much more than the privileges of rulers are 
insisted on, as that drawn up for Israel. Nowhere is 
the fundamental truth that the welfare of the state in 



Appendix 201 

the long run depends on the welfare of the citizen, so 
strongly laid down. — Huxley. 

For more than a thousand years the Bible, collectively 
taken, has gone hand in hand with civilization, science, 
law — in short, with the moral and intellectual cultiva- 
tion of the species — always supporting, and often lead- 
ing the way. — Coleridge. 

Wholly apart from its religious or its ethical value, 
the Bible is the one book that no intelligent person, 
v/ho wishes to come into contact with the world of 
thought and to share ideas of the great minds of the 
Christian era, can afford to be ignorant of. — Charles 
Dudley Warner. 

In response to the query, What do I owe the Bible? 
my short reply would be, everything ; my long reply, to 
be sufficiently serious and comprehensive, would run to 
reams of paper. But, if I am addressed as a man of 
letters, I would simply say that I owe my education 
as a writer more to the Bible than to any other hun- 
dred books that could be named. — Sir Ed-mn Arnold. 

Of the translation itself, though since that time 
it has been many times revised and altered, we may 
say that it is substantially the Bible with which we 
are all familiar. The peculiar genius — if such a word 
may be permitted — which breathes through it, the 
mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity — 
the preternatural grandeur — unequaled, unapproached, 
in the attempted improvement of modern scholars — all 
are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man 
— William Tyndale. Lying, while engaged in the great 
office, under the shadow of death, the sword above his 



202 Appendix 

head and ready at any moment to fall, he worked, under 
circumstances alone perhaps truly worthy of his task 
which was laid upon him, his spirit, as it were, divorced 
from the world, moved in a purer element than com- 
mon air.—/. A. Froude. 

There are some books that are absolutely indispen- 
sable to the kind of education that we are contemplating, 
and to the profession that we are considering; and of 
all these the most indispensable, the most useful, the 
one whose knowledge is most effective, is the Bible. 
There is no book from which more valuable lessons 
can be learned. I am considering it now, not as a 
religious book, but as a manual of utility, of profes- 
sional preparation and professional use for a journal- 
ist. There is, perhaps, no book whose style is more 
suggestive and more instructive, from which you learn 
more directly that sublime simplicity which never exag- 
gerates, which recounts the greatest events with solem- 
nity, of course, but without sentimentality or affecta- 
tion — none which you open with such confidence and 
lay down with such reverence: there is no book like 
the Bible. — Charles A. Dana. 

The husbandman might sing parts of them at his 
plow tail, the weaver might warble them at his shuttle, 
the traveler might, with their narrative, beguile the 
weariness of his way. — Erasmus. 

I cannot understand the mental attitude of those 
who would put the Bible to one side as not being a 
book of interest to grown men. What could interest 
men who find the Bible dull? The Sunday newspaper? 
Think of the difference there must be in the mental 
make-up of the men whose chief reading includes the 
one, as compared with the man whose chief reading is 



Appendix 203 

represented by the other — the vulgarity, the shallowness, 
the inability to keep the mind fixed on any serious sub- 
ject, which is implied in the mind of any man who 
cannot read the Bible, and yet can take pleasure in read- 
ing only literature of the type of the colored supplement 
of the Sunday paper. Now, I am not speaking against 
the colored supplement of any paper in its place; but as 
a substitute for serious reading of the great Book, it 
represents a type of mind which it is gross flattery 
merely to call shallow. — Theodore Roosevelt. 

All that I have taught of art, everything that I have 
written, whatever greatness there has been in any 
thought of mine, whatever I have done in my life, has 
simply been due to the fact that, when I was a child, 
my mother daily read with me a part of the Bible, and 
daily made me learn a part of it by heart. — John Ruskin. 

Biblical study is the most attractive of all studies. 
The variety of topic, richness of material, beauty of 
form, wealth of illustration, the vast importance of its 
themes, the unity in which the amazing variety of 
author, age, and topic is bound together — all make the 
Bible the most interesting and absorbing story for peas- 
ant and prince, for child and sage, for all the world — ^the 
Bible is the book of life, a real book, a people's book. 
It is a blessed means of grace when used in devo- 
tional hours, it has also holy lessons and beauties of 
thought and sentiment for hours of leisure and recrea- 
tion. It appeals to the aesthetic and intellectual as 
well as moral and spiritual faculties, the whole man 
in his whole life. — Charles A. Briggs. 

(The Bible), the greatest prose work in any language. 
— Professor Saintsbury. 



204 Appendix 

It is mere commonplace to say that the translation 
of the Bible is one of the two or three supreme mo^^- 
ments of English literature. It should be equally 
obvious that no English-speaking person is really edu- 
cated who is unfamiliar with this Book. On it the 
masters of English expression have deliberately or un- 
consciously formed their style, for they have known 
it as they have known no other book. Its stories, poetry, 
and characters are interwoven with English literature 
as inextricably as its sacred teachings are embodied in 
the doctrines of the church and the ethics of the race. — 
Professor Stockton Axson. 

And as it is owned the whole schem.e of Scripture is 
not yet understood, so, if it comes to be understood, it 
must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come 
at; by the continuance and progress of learning and 
of liberty, and by particular persons attending to, com- 
paring and pursuing intimations scattered up and down 
it, which are overlooked, and disregarded by the gen- 
erality of the world. Nor is it at all incredible that 
a book which has been so long in the possession of 
mankind should contain many truths as yet undiscov- 
ered. For all the same phenomena and the same facul- 
ties of investigation from which such great discoveries 
in natural knowledge have been made in the present 
and last age were equally in the possession of mankind 
several thousand years before. — Butler. 

You went out from the Sunday-school in your teens, 
with such ideas of God and the Bible as you had then 
been able to receive, and you have been living your re- 
ligious life upon them ever since. In the world's work 
you have bent your powers to large undertakings, and 



Appendix 205 

have grappled with the enterprises of adult humanity. 
But upon the Bible and the thought of God you have 
never made strenuous exercise of your maturer facul- 
ties ; you have never done man's work in seeking a more 
adequate knowledge of these realities, but have tried to 
live along nourished by no larger or richer conceptions 
than you made your own when your powers were those 
of children. No wonder that your adult minds cannot 
more than half believe in the Bible and the God of 
your infancy; no wonder that your religious life is 
narrow and poor, your minds are perplexed by the 
hard questions of the day, and your energies are re- 
pressed or misdirected. You need to put away childish 
things, and to make 3'our own the Bible and the God 
of men. — William Newton Clarke. 

I think that I know my Bible as few literary men 
know it. There is no book in the world like it, and 
the finest novels ever written fall far short in interest 
of any one of the stories it tells. Whatever strong 
situations I have in my books are not of my crea- 
tion, but are taken from the Bible. "The Deemster" is 
the story of the Prodigal Son. "The Bondman" is 
the story of Esau and Jacob. "The Scapegoat" is the 
story of Eli and his sons, and the "Manxman" is the 
story of David and Uriah. — Hall Caine. 

The Bible is the most important document in the 
world's history. No man can be wholly uneducated who 
really knows the Bible, nor can any one be considered 
a truly educated man who is ignorant of it. — President 
Schurman. 

We no longer need to read the Bible with the blinds 
of our intelligence half drawn down. We no longer 



2o6 Appendix 

open the pages of the Prophets with the feeling that we 
are to force ourselves, as once seemed necessary, into 
a mental attitude which was a strange mixture of 
anxious devoutness and a pained sense of a lack of 
completeness . . . while our intellectual honesty 
compelled us to feel that we did not really understand 
when we had read. — Bishop of Ripen. 

I do not know a book which gives in such a compact 
and poetic form every phase of human ideas as the 
Bible. All the questions which arise out of the mani- 
festations of nature have their answer here; all the 
original relations of man to man, the family, the 
state, and religion are known for the first time through 
this book. The power of truth and wisdom in its 
simple, childish form, take hold of the child's mind with 
their powerful charm. The Psalms of David influence 
not only the thought of the child, but he learns to 
know for the first time the whole fascination of poetry 
in its inimitable purity and strength. Who of us has 
not wept over the story of Joseph and his brethren, or 
listened to the story of the shorn Samson with much 
anxiety and beating of the heart ; and who has not 
received all those other hundreds of noble impressions, 
which we have drawn in as with our mother's milk? — 
Tolstoy. 

The English Bible, — a book which if ever)rthing else 
in our language should perish, would alone suffice to 
show the whole extent of its beauty and power. — Lord 
Macaulay. 

The parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful 
fiction that ever was invented; our Saviour's speech to 
his disciples, with which he closes his earthly ministra- 



Appendix ' 207 

tion, full of the sublimest dignity and tenderest affec- 
tion, surpass everything that I ever read; and, like the 
Spirit by which they were dictated, fly directly to the 
heart. — Cowper. 

Many millions of men have learned to read for no 
other purpose than to read the Bible. When a single 
society prints the Bible in three hundred and fifty lan- 
guages, many of which were reduced to a written form 
simply in order that they might receive the Bible, we 
may gain some inkling of the enormous intellectual 
force generated by a religion which reaches the world 
through a literature. Millions of men have learned 
Greek simply to read the New Testament. Hebrew 
has been saved from oblivion among Christians purely 
by the desire to read the ipsissima verba of Israel's 
prophets, priests, and sages. — President W. H. P. 
Faunce. 

All human discoveries seem to be made only for the 
purpose of confirming more strongly the truths come 
from on high, and contained in the sacred writings. — 
Sir John F. W. Herschel. 

As the spiritual life with which the Bible deals is 
the flower of human life, so the Book which deals with 
it is the flower of human books. But it is not thereby 
an inhuman book. It is the most human of all books. 
In it is seen the everlasting struggle of the man-life to 
fulfil itself in God. All books in which that universal 
struggle of humanity is told are younger brothers — less 
clear and realized and developed utterances of that 
which is so vivid of the divine Man. I will not be 
puzzled, but rejoice when I find in all the sacred books, 
in all deep, serious books of every sort, foregleams and 



2o8 Appendix 

adumbrations of the lights and shadows which lie dis- 
tinct upon the Bible page. I will seek and find the 
assurance that my Bible is inspired of God not in virtue 
of its distance from, but in virtue of its nearness to, the 
human experience and heart. It is in that experience 
and heart that the real inspiration of God is given, and 
thence it issues into the written book : 

Out of the heart of nature rolled 
The burdens of the Bible old. 
The litanies of nations came 
Like the volcano's tongue of flame; 
Up from the burning core below 
The canticles of love and woe. 

That book is most inspired which most worthily and 
deeply tells the story of the most inspired life. — Bishop 
Brooks. 

We are astonished to find in a lyrical poem of such a 
limited compass (Psalm 104) the whole universe — the 
heavens and the earth — sketched with a few bold 
touches. The calm and toilsome life of man, from the 
rising of the sun to the setting of the same, when his 
daily work is done, is here contrasted with the moving 
life of the elements of nature. This contrast and gen- 
eralization in the conception of natural phenomena, and 
the retrospection of an omnipresent, invisible Power, 
which can renew the earth or crumble it to dust, con- 
stitute a solemn and exalted form of poetic creation. — 
Humboldt. 

I believe that the Bible should not only be taught in 
every public school, but that it should have the first 
place, and every other study should be made subordi- 
nate. — JVilliam Lyon Phelps. 



Appendix 209 

The most learned, acute, and diligent student cannot, 
in the longest life, obtain an entire knowledge of this 
one volume. The more deeply he works the mine, the 
richer and more abundant he finds the ore; new light 
continually beams from this source of heavenly knowl- 
edge, to direct the conduct, and illustrate the work of 
God and the ways of men ; and he will at last leave 
the world confessing that the more he studied the Scrip- 
tures, the fuller conviction he had of his own ignorance, 
and of their inestimable value. — Sir Walter Scott. 

The Bible can never be replaced until some history 
has been produced that shall reveal God more clearly 
than the history of Israel and of the first Christian 
century. A better book than the Bible cannot be 
written until a better life than that of Christ has been 
lived. — Wood,. ' 

Our Bible is still the key to the best English diction ; 
and by conservance with it our children are made 
familiar with their own language in a purer form than 
any other which can be placed before them. — Dr. A. P. 
Peabody. 

All modern literature and all modern art are perme- 
ated with it. There is scarcely a great work in the 
language that can be fully understood and enjoyed with- 
out this knowledge, so full is it of allusions and illus- 
trations from the Bible. A boy or girl at college, in 
the presence of the works set forth for either to master, 
without a fair knowledge of the Bible is an ignoramus, 
and is disadvantaged accordingly. There are in Shakes- 
peare more than five hundred and fifty Biblical quota- 
tions, allusions, references, and sentiments. — Charles 
Dudley Warner, 



21 o Appendix 

The Bible thoroughly known is a literature of itself— 
the rarest and the richest in all departments of thought 
or imagination which exists. — J. A. Froude. 

As a mere literary monument, the English of the 
Bible remains the noblest example of the English 
tongue, while its perpetual use made it from the instant 
of its appearance the standard of our language. — John 
Richard Green, 

I have carefully and regularly perused these Holy 
Scriptures, and am of opinion that the volume, inde- 
pendently of its divine origin, contains more true sub- 
limity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more 
important history, and finer strains of poetry and 
eloquence, than could be collected within the same 
compass from all other books, in whatever age or lan- 
guage they may have been written. — Sir William Jones. 

The Bible, considered merely as literature, without 
any regard to its doctrines, has more strong, nervous 
English, more pathos, more sublimity, more pith and 
power, than any other work in our language. — Dr, 
Spofford. 

Witness to the Bible from World Leaders 

Furthermore, to disassociate the Bible with 
pubHc life would be to deprive world leader- 
ship of one of its chief and universal sup- 
ports : 

The best of allies you can procure for us is the Bible. 
That will bring us the reality of freedom. — Garibaldi. 



Appendix 211 

It is necessary for the welfare of the nation that 
men's lives be based on the principles of the Bible. — 
Theodore Roosevelt. 

General Grant, President of the United States, sent 
a message to this effect to the Sunday-school children 
of America in 1876: "Hold fast to the Bible as the 
sheet anchor of your liberties. Write its precepts on 
your hearts and practice them in your lives. To the 
influence of this book we are indebted for the progress 
made in true civilization, and to this we must look as 
our guide in the future." 

Our modern political life needs the recreating power 
of the Gospels ; it needs change from within more than 
it needs external panaceas. — Senator DolUver. 

A stream where alike the elephant may swim and 
the lamb may wade. — Gregory the Great. 

David Livingstone, when nine years old, learned and 
repeated the 119th Psalm. His pastor gave him as a 
reward a New Testament. Livingstone died on his 
knees. The light reflected from his countenance upon 
the black face of Africa was the greatest Christian 
message which the Dark Continent has yet received. 

I have been in Africa seventeen years. In 1871 I 
went to Africa as prejudiced as the biggest atheist in 
London. But there came for me a long time for reflec- 
tion. I was out there away from a worldly world. I 
saw a solitary old man there, and asked, "Why on earth 
does he stop here? Is he cracked, or what? What is 
it that inspires him?" For months after we met I 
simply found myself listening to him, wondering at 
him, as he carried out all that was said in the Bible: 



212 Appendix 

"Leave all that ye have, and follow me." But, little 
by little, his sympathy became contagious. Seeing his 
piety, his gentleness, and how quietly he did his duty, 
I was converted by him, though he had not tried to 
do it. 

Not long after, in 1873, that old man was found dead 
on his knees, by the side of his lowly cot, in his mud 
hut, in the heart of Africa, with none but black faces 
around him. And the faithful blacks, for whose sake 
he had left all and succumbed to his endless hardships, 
smeared his corpse with pitch, and covered it with 
palm leaves, and carried it on their shoulders, 300 miles 
to Zanzibar. A ship bore it to England, and it was 
buried amid the tears of the noble and great, in the 
nave of Westminster Abbey. The traveler was Mr. 
H. M. Stanley ; the aged missionary, whose life is the 
pledge ©f future regeneration for miserable and dis- 
tracted Africa, was David Livingstone. And though 
he died and saw no fruit of his labors, it is to him and 
to the text which had grown so luminous to him, that 
we owe the translation of the Bible since his death into 
fourteen languages of Africa, and the extension of 
the British protectorate over 170,000 square miles. 

God of our fathers, known of old, 
Lord of our far-flung battle-line. 
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold 
Dominion over palm and pine — 

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget — lest we forget! 

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose 
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe. 
Such boastings as the Gentiles use, 



Appendix 213 

Or lesser breeds without the Law — 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget — ^lest we forget ! 

— Kipling. 

The testimony of Napoleon I to the Bible, as re- 
corded in Bertrand's Memoirs: "Behold it upon this 
table" (here he solemnly placed his hand upon it). 
"I never omit to read it, and every day with the same 
pleasure. Nowhere is to be found such a series of 
beautiful ideas, admirable moral maxims, which pro- 
duce in one's soul the same emotion which one ex- 
periences in contemplating the infinite expanse of the 
skies resplendent upon a summer's night with all the 
brilliance of the stars. Not only is one's mind absorbed, 
it is controlled, and the soul can never go astray with 
this book for its guide." 

For centuries the prophets have been ignored as 
mysterious oracles, honored and valued merely for the 
precious texts and sayings which sparkled like rare 
and brilliant gems upon the dim, obscure surface of an 
unexplored literature. Modern scholarship has laid 
bare their intimate relation to the political and social 
problems of the day . . . There has been no more 
helpful, no more stimulating exegetical work done by 
modern critical scholars than the treatment of the 
prophets by Driver, George Adam Smith, Kirkpatrick 
and Ottley. — Bishop of Winchester. 

Slowly the Bible of the race is writ. 

And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone; 

Each age, each kindred, adds to it, 

Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan. 



214 Appendix 

While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, 
While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud, 
Still at the prophet's feet the nations sit. 

— Lowell 

I invite any honest-minded man to look at a map of 
the world and see what a story that map tells. Which 
are the countries on the face of the globe at this mo- 
ment where there is the greatest amount of idolatry, or 
cruelty, or impurity, or misgovernment, or disregard of 
life, liberty, and truth? Precisely those countries where 
the Bible is not known. Which are the Christian 
countries, so-called, where the greatest quantity of 
ignorance, superstition, and corruption is to be found 
at this moment? The countries in which the Bible is a 
forbidden or neglected book, — such countries as Spain 
and the South American States. Which are the coun- 
tries where liberty and public and private morality have 
attained the highest pitch? The countries where the 
Bible is free to all, like England, Scotland, Germany, 
and the United States. Yes ! when you know how a 
nation deals with the Bible you may know what that 
nation is. — A Bishop of the English Church. 

Let the world progress as much as it likes ; let all 
branches of human research develop to the very utmost ; 
nothing will take the place of the Bible. — Goethe. 

But to outweigh all harm, the sacred book, 

In dusty sequestration wrapped too long. 

Assumes the accent of our native tongue; 

And he who guides the plough, or wields the crook, 

With understanding spirit now may look 

Upon her records, listen to her song. 

And sift her laws— much wondering that the. wrong 



Appendix 215 

Which faith hath suffered, heaven could calmly brook. 
Transcendent boon! nobler than earthly king 
Ever bestowed to equalize and bless, 
Under the weight of mortal wretchedness! 

— Wordsworth. 

Mr. Lincoln, as I saw him every morning, in the 
carpet slippers he wore in the house, and the black 
clothes no tailor could make really fit his gaunt, bony 
frame, was a homely enough figure. The routine of 
his life was simple, too ; it would have seemed a tread- 
mill to most of us. He was an early riser; when I 
came on duty, at eight in the morning, he was often 
already dressed and reading in the library. There was 
a big table near the center of the room; there I have 
seen him reading many times. And the book? It was 
the Bible which I saw him reading while most of the 
household slept. — William H. Crook. 

If you take out of your statutes, your constitution, 
your family life, all that is taken from the Sacred Book, 
what would there be left to bind society together? — 
Benjamin Harrison. 

No lawyer could afford to be ignorant of the Bible. — 
Rufus Choate. 

No nation is better than its sacred book. In that 
book are expressed its highest ideals of life, and no 
nation rises above those ideals. No nation has a sacred 
book to be compared with ours. This American nation 
from its first settlement at Jamestown to the present 
hour is based upon and permeated by the principles of 
the Bible. The more this Bible enters into our national 
life the grander and purer and better will that life be- 
come. — Justice David J. Brewer. 



2i6 Appendix 

The Bible as a literature of power lies at the basis 
of our Western civilization; therefore, its study lets 
us into our common heritage of ideas, ideals and prac- 
tical principles as no other book can do. — Mattoon M. 
Curtis. I 

I have for many years made it a practice to read 
through the Bible once a year. It is an invaluable and 
inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue. — John 
Qutncy Adams. 

Bible teaching is the supreme work of the Christian 
ministry, and the supreme work of the Sunday-school 
teacher. Let Christian ministers and Sunday-school 
teachers devote themselves to this work, and the result 
will be the Bible known and lived by the Church of 
God; and that will mean purity and compassion, living 
and active, in the affairs of men. Only so will the 
nation receive that Word of God, without which its 
conceptions will be vulgar, its conduct debased, and its 
character degraded. — Campbell Morgan. 

Match, if you can, the Bible's table of contents: 

1. The story of the Fall and of the Flood, grandest 
of human traditions founded on a true horror of sin, 

2. The story of the Patriarchs, 

3. The story of Moses, with the results of that tradi- 
tion on the moral law of all the civilized world. 

4. The story of the Kings; virtually that of all king- 
hood in David, and all philosophy in Solomon, cul- 
minating in the Psalms and Proverbs, and the still 
more close and practical wisdom of Ecclesiastes and 
the son of Sirach. 



Appendix 217 

5. The story of the Prophets; virtually the deepest 
mystery, tragedy, and permanent fate of national ex- 
istence. 

6. The story of Christ. 

7. The moral of St. John and his closing Apocalypse 
of its fulfilment. — John Ruskin. 

The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, 
and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial 
revelation from God. — Daniel Webster. 

Whence, but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts, 
In several ages born, in several parts. 
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why, 
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie ! 
Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice. 
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price. 

— Dryden. 

The prophecy of Micah produced a great impression 
on his contemporaries, for he spoke to the masses of 
the people as one of themselves. — Robertson Smith. 

If the common schools have found their way from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific; if slavery has been abol- 
ished ; if the whole land has been changed from a wil- 
derness into a garden of plenty, from ocean to ocean ; 
if education has been fostered according to the best 
light of each generation since then; if industry, fru- 
gality and sobriety are the watchwords of the nation, 
as I believe them to be, I say it is largely due to those 
first emigrants, who, landing with the English Bible in 
their hands and in their hearts , . . established 
themselves on the shores of America. — The Hon. Joseph 
H. Choate. 



21 8 Appendix 

I read the Bible often and with pleasure. A Bible 
lies beside me at night in which most of the precious 
thoughts are underlined. I cannot understand how 
many men exist who do not busy themselves with God's 
Word. In all my thoughts and actions I ask myself 
the question, What does the Bible say on the point? 
The Bible is to me the source from which I draw 
strength and light. In hours of trembling and fear I 
lay hold on this treasure of comfort. — Kaiser Wilhelm. 

No literature of antiquity is possessed with so deep 
a love of the poor, speaks so strong and generous words 
concerning them, surrounds them with so much dig- 
nity and so many rights as the Old Testament. — Prin- 
cipal Fairbairn. 

The Bible is a universal boon to mankind ; it belongs 
to the world like the air, the ocean, the rivers. — Red- 
ford, 

The immediate work of our day is the study of the 
Bible. Other studies will act upon the progress of man- 
kind by acting through and upon this. — Dr. Temple. 

"A. Lincoln, his own book," words found in the cover 
of Lincoln's well-worn Bible. 

Lincoln wrote to his intimate friend, Joshua F. Speed : 
I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all 
of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance 
on faith, and you will live and die a better man. 

It seems to me that nothing short of infinite wisdom 
could by any possibility have devised and given to 
man this excellent and perfect moral code. It is suited 
to men in all the conditions of life, and includes all 
the duties they owe to their Creator, to themselves, and 
to their fellow-man. — Lincoln. 



Appendix 219 

Most religions are meant to be straight lines con- 
necting two points — God and man. But Christianity 
has three points — God, man and his brother — with two 
lines to make a right angle. — Maltbie D. Babcock. 

I always have said and always will say that the 
studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better 
citizens, better fathers, and better husbands. — Thomas 
Jefferson. 

Christianity was first introduced among the Japanese 
in 1549, by Francis Xavier, and for a time Christianity 
spread considerably among the people. But soon, 
through the meddling of Jesuits, there arose very seri- 
ous quarrels and disturbances, and at last many Chris- 
tians were cruelly put to death. Persecutions went on 
more or less for a long period of time; almost all the 
remaining Christians in Japan were murdered ; and in 
1637 Japan was closed "forever" to foreigners and to 
Christianity. There was a public inscription put up to 
the effect that anybody who taught the "vile Jesus doc- 
trine," as it was called, should be executed. Who was 
it who reintroduced Christianity into Japan? It was a 
Japanese nobleman. One day he saw in the Bay of 
Yeddo something floating on the water, which proved 
to be a Bible. He did not, however, know what it was, 
but was told that it was a book which had dropped 
from some English or American vessel. He became in- 
terested in it and anxious to know more about it. He 
then sent it to Shanghai to have it interpreted for him. 
His study of the truth was sanctified to him; he was 
converted, and in 1857 was the first Japanese who was 
baptized. Two others were baptized with him, and 
from that time Christianity has been a living and 



220 Appendix 

growing power in the Empire. The first great impulse 
was given by that single Bible. — Dean Farrar. 

The Bible is the king's best copy, the magistrate's 
best rule, the housewife's best guide, the servant's best 
directory, and the best companion of youth. — S. Tra- 
vena Jackson. 

England became the people of a book, and that book 
was the Bible. It was, as yet, the one English book 
which was familiar to every Englishman. It was read 
in churches, and it was read at home, and everywhere 
its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not 
deadened to their force and beauty, kindled a startling 
enthusiasm. . . . Elizabeth might silence or tune 
the pulpits, but it was impossible for her to silence or 
tune the great preachers of justice, and mercy, and 
truth, who spoke from the Book which the Lord again 
opened to the people . . . the effect of the Bible in 
this way was simply amazing. The whole temper of 
the nation was changed. A new conception of life and 
of man superseded the old. A new moral and religious 
impulse spread through every class. Theology rules 
there, said Grotius of England, only ten years after 
Elizabeth's death. The whole nation, in fact, becomes 
a church. — /. H. Green. 

The period of the Reformation was a judgment day 
for Europe, when all the nations were presented with an 
open Bible, and all the emancipation of heart and intel- 
lect which an open Bible involves. — Thomas Carlyle. 

The King of England has been presented with a copy 
of the old black-letter King James Version, silver- 
bound, and has replied in a most enthusiastic address 
in which he says, that the Bible "is the most valuable 



Appendix 221 

thing this world affords." He compared the King 
James Version to a broad light, which came in the 
darkness, giving to the whole English-speaking people 
the right and power to search for the truths and con- 
solations of faith. "The multiplying millions of the 
English-speaking world," said the king, "have turned 
in their need to the grand simplicity of the Authorized 
Version, and have drawn from its inexhaustible springs, 
wisdom, courage and joy." 

Witness of Great Men to the Moral and 
Religious Values of the Bible 

It is generally conceded that the Bible has 
formed the background for intelligent religion, 
quite regardless of race or creed. The extent 
to which this is true, however, is fairly start- 
ling when one begins to investigate the place 
of the Bible in moral and religious enterprises. 

The vigor of your spiritual life will be in exact pro- 
portion to the place held by the Bible in your life. — 
George Muller. 

The Bible has such power for teaching righteousness 
that even to those who come to it with all sorts of false 
notions about the God of the Bible, it yet teaches 
righteousness, and fills them with the love of it; how 
much more those who come to it with a true notion 
about the God of the Bible. — Matthew Arnold. 

The great mission and priceless value of the Bible 
are that it puts us in touch with the most significant 
lives of the world, in the greatest realm — that of the 



222 Appendix 

moral and spiritual — the lives that we need most of 
all, because religion is the great unlocker of the powers 
of m&i,^— President Henry Churchill King. 

Charles Dickens placed a Bible in his son's trunk as 
his boy went to become a colonist in Australia. He 
afterwards wrote to him: "I put a New Testament 
among your books for the very same reason and with 
the very same hopes that made me write an easy ac- 
count of it for you when you were a little child, be- 
cause it is the best book that ever was or will be 
known in the world, and because it teaches you the 
best lessons by which any human creature who tries 
to be faithful and truthful to duty can possibly be 
guided." 

The diction of the English Bible, with its simplicity, 
its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its 
general accuracy, the music of its cadences, and the 
felicities of its rhythm, is the consecrated diction of 
devotion and religious instruction for all denominations 
of English-speaking Christians, God's greatest gift to 
the many millions of Britain and America. It lives 
on the ear like music that can never be forgotten, like 
the sound of church bells which the convert hardly 
knows how to forego. The memory of the dead passes 
into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereo- 
typed in its voices. The power of all the griefs and 
trials of man's life is hid beneath its words. It is 
the representation of his best moments; and all that 
there has been about him of soft and pure and peni- 
tent and good, speaks to him from out of his Protestant 
Bible. It is his sacred thing which doubt has never 
dimmed and controversy never soiled. — Dr. Faber. 



Appendix 223 

Science is gradually adapting itself to religion as 
we find it set forth in the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testaments, and when such scholars as Dr. Mc- 
Connell, among the clergy, and John Fiske, among 
historians and authors — men of eminent ability and ad- 
mittedly in the front rank of scholarship — when such 
men declare that there is nothing in their researches 
that cannot be reconciled with their full belief in the 
authenticity and authority of the Bible as an infallible 
guide for our conduct and credence, we are bound to 
believe them. — The Christian Work and Evangelist. 

But if any speak not concerning Jesus Christ, I look 
upon them as tombstones and sepulchres of the dead, 
on which are written only the names of men. — St. 
Ignatius. 

The Bible is alive. It possesses and communicates 
life. Its ideas are not merely perceived, but apper- 
ceived. The Gospel is educative because its teacher put 
its truth before men in a form to be apperceived, to 
become, not a part of a man's mental store, but a part 
of his mental life. The words of Plato are a price- 
less treasure, but the words of Jesus are spirit and life. 
— Chinese Gordon. 

The Bible is so rich in spiritual beauty and moral 
power and faultless guidance for life, that a man is 
morally crippled who has not lived with the Book dur- 
ing the formative days of his life. 

The Bible is also the literature of a great people, 
and is so full of human experience, so noble and lucid 
in expression, so grandly simple and true, so charged 
with digfnity of thought and beauty of style, that a 
man's culture, though it range through all the disci- 



224 Appendix 

plines, is likely to miss depth and reality if it has not 
been informed and nourished by knowledge and under- 
standing of the Scriptures. Bossuet and Voltaire, 
Leo XIII and Matthew Arnold, Cardinal Newman and 
Thomas Huxley, all agree on that much. — President 
Edwin A. Alderman. 

The existence of the Bible, as a book for the people, 
is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever 
experienced. Every attempt to belittle it ... is a 
crime against humanity. And if there are to be mir- 
acles, this book ... is itself the greatest miracle. 
For here we have a system of religious doctrines and 
beliefs that has been built up without the help of the 
Greek philosophy, by unlearned persons, and that has, 
more than any other, exercised an influence for good 
upon the hearts and lives of men. — Immanuel Kant. 

The adorable Jesus Christ was born in the hamlet of 
Bethlehem, situated in the well-known province of 
Palestine, The religion he preached is what is now 
called the Christian religion, and those who believe in 
and obey Jesus are called Christians. As we contem- 
plate his unique moral beauty, incomparable wisdom 
and learning, his marvelous and mighty words, his 
spotless character, meek and loving spirit, his deeds of 
mercy and words of love, his mighty miracles wrought 
by divine power, the heart refuses to admit that this 
Jesus is a mere man, but feels that he is divine. By 
his wonderful works of love wrought for the help and 
relief of the poor and needy, by his exquisitely tender 
sympathy with the afflicted, by the light, moral and 
spiritual, which he shed, by setting men free from the 
torment of sin, by giving knowledge to the ignorant, 



Appendix 225 

both women and men, in simple terms that all could 
understand, Jesus had won for himself a unique place 
(may we not say it?) in human hearts. He is a sea of 
beauty, a bottomless mine of moral and spiritual wealth, 
a store of mercy, an ocean of knowledge. If you can 
cast off all the fetters of superstition, and look upon 
Jesus with holy and earnest intentness, you cannot but 
be fully persuaded to believe in his deity. His whole 
life was actively employed in doing good to others, in 
bettering the condition of the world, in making earth as 
heaven. — Brahmin Editor of India. 

The joyful life is the life of the larger mission, the 
disinterested life, the life of the overflow from self, 
the "more abundant life" which comes from following 
Christ. — Professor Henry Drummond. 

It was reserved for Christianity to present to the 
world an ideal character which, through all the changes 
of eighteen centuries, has inspired the hearts of men 
with an impassioned love ; has shown itself capable of 
acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and condi- 
tions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, 
but the strongest incentive to its practice; and has 
exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said 
that the simple record of three short years of active 
life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind 
than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the 
exhortations of moralists. — W. E. H. Lecky. 

John Penry left the following message to his chil- 
dren: "Although you should be brought up in never 
so hard a service, yet, my dear children, learn to read, 
that you may be conversant day and night in the Word 
of the Lord. If your mother be able to keep you to- 



226 Appendix 

gether, I doubt not but that you shall learn to read 
and write by her means. I have left you four Bibles, 
each of you one, being the sole and only patrimony or 
dowry that I have for you. I beseech you and I charge 
you, not only to keep them, but to read them day and 
night; and before you read, and also in and after your 
reading, be earnest in prayer and meditation, that you 
may understand and perform the good way of your 
God." 

All systems of morality are fine. The Gospel alone 
has exhibited a complete assemblage of the principles 
of morality, divested of all absurdity. It is not com- 
posed, like your creed, of a few commonplace sentences 
put into bad verse. Do you wish to see that which is 
really sublime? Repeat the Lord's prayer. — Napoleon I. 

Written in the East, these characters live forever in 
the West; written in one province, they pervade the 
world; penned in rude times, they are prized more 
and more as civilization advances ; product of antiquity, 
they come home to the business and bosoms of men, 
women, and children in the modern days. Then is it 
any exaggeration to say that the "characters of Scrip- 
ture are a marvel of the mind"? — Robert Louis Steven- 
son. 

The first and almost the only book deserving of uni- 
versal attention is the Bible. The Bible is the book of 
all others to be read at all ages and in all conditions 
of human life; not to be read once or twice through 
and then laid aside, but to read in small portions of 
one or two chapters every day, and never to be inter- 
mitted except by some overruling necessity. I speak 



Appendix 227 

as a man of the world to men of the world, and I say to 
you, "Search the Scriptures." I have for many years 
made it a practice to read through the Bible once a 
year . . . It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine 
of knowledge and virtue. — John Quincy Adams. 

Within this ample volume lies 
The mystery of mysteries; 
Happiest they of human race 
To whom their God has given grace, 
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, 
To lift the latch, to force the way : 
And better had they ne'er been born. 
That read to doubt, or read to scorn. 

— Sir Walter Scott. 

The Bible is a record, but it is not a dead record of 
dead persons and events, but a record inspired by the 
living Spirit who uses it to speak to men now. It is 
more than a phonograph which has mechanically stored 
up for ages the words and tones of the original speaker. 
It is the medium through which the living God now 
makes himself heard and known. But to find in it 
the Spirit of God the reader must himself have the 
Spirit. — Dods. 

A glory gilds the sacred page, 

Majestic like the sun, 
It gives a light to every age; 

It gives, but borrows none. — Cozvt*er. 

The vision of God in Christ is the greatest gift in 
the world. It binds those who receive it to the highest 
and most consecrated life. To behold that vision is 



228 Appendix 

to be one of God's elect. But the result of that election 
depends upon the giving of ourselves to serve the 
world for Jesus' sake. Noblesse oblige. — Henry van 
Dyke. 

When these giants in human intellect can tell me 
whence Moses derived his science in legislation without 
admitting the superlative and divine authority of the 
ten commandments, I shall begin to listen with more 
reverence to the teachers of human perfectibility. In 
that short and comprehensive code we find given us 
a perfect rule of action, covering the whole ground of 
man's existence; a rule not only prescribing our duty 
to God and man in our external behaviour, but reaching 
to the thoughts and feelings of the hearts in every pos- 
sible condition of life, and in all our relations to our 
Maker and our fellow-beings. The wisdom of ages, 
the learning and philosophy of the schools, have never 
discovered a single defect in that code. Not a virtue 
which is not there inculcated. Not a vice in its most 
doubtful and shadowy form which is not there pro- 
hibited. 

Whence, then I ask, did the great Jewish lawgiver 
derive his spirit of legislation? If that code was writ- 
ten by the finger of the Almighty, let us bow to it with 
reverence and seek no better rule of life nor any wiser 
principle of action. But if they emanated only from 
the capacious mind and were dictated by the wisdom 
of Moses, then Moses was a wiser, a more learned man 
than any of our new teachers, and I had rather be 
under his jurisdiction and keep his commandments 
than learn new rules of civil polity and social inter- 
course from the most wise and learned of the present 
(Jay. — Judge of the Anglo-Saxon Bench and Bar. 



Appendix 229 

In one of our American cities an actress, the star of 
the most fashionable theatre of the city, bought a New- 
Testament and Psalter. She said to the salesman : 
'1 always carry a Bible with me. People think that 
we do not read the Bible, but we read it a great deal 
more than we get credit for, and some of us try to live 
up to its principles in our lives." 

What a history a collection of Bibles would give us, 
if we could only have it ! One would represent to us 
the sigh from a penitent, and one the song from a 
saint, and one would have its story of strength for 
some one who was tempted, and through one Christ's 
heart of fire melted the icicles round some heart of ice. 
— Archbishop of Armagh. 

Thy thoughts are here, my God, 

Expressed in words divine, 
The utterance of sacred lips 

In every sacred line. 
Across the ages they 

Have reached us from afar; 
Than the bright gold more golden they, 

Purer than purest star. — Horatius Bottar. 

I look upon the Bible as the book of the world. I 
see its divine authorship as plainly as I see the author- 
ship of God in the stars, which I know no human 
mechanic could have ever built in his shop and flung 
them out into space. — R. S. Starrs. 

The highest historical probability can be adduced in 
support of the proposition, that, if it were possible to 
annihilate the Bible, and with it all its influence, we 
should destroy with it the whole spiritual system of the 
moral world — all our great moral ideas — refinement of 



230 Appendix 

manners — constitutional government — equitable admin- 
istration and security of property — our schools, hos- 
pitals, and benevolent associations — the press — the fine 
arts — the equality of the sexes, and the blessings of 
the fireside; in a word, all that distinguishes Europe 
and America from Turkey and Hindustan. — Edward 
Everett. 

He succeeds in his undertakings just so far as he 
is able to incorporate the spirit of the Bible in his 
work. — William T. Stead. 

The greatest contribution to the modern historical 

method of Bible study is in the message to our times 

that Christ is the full voice of God. — President R. A. 
Falconer. 

With our modern, half-personal, unlocalized ideas of 
Jesus, it must always be striking — sometimes it is 
startling — to remember that there was one little dis- 
trict of a few miles square upon the surface of this 
earth, which was known as "his own country." That 
little group of hills with the quiet valleys among them, 
which lies between Nazareth and the Sea of Tiberias, 
he loved as we loved the streets or farms where we 
were born. And not very far off to the southward lay 
the great city of his race, where his feet never seemed 
to enter except solemnly. — Phillips Brooks. 

The Bible is the record of God's revelation of himself 
for the highest education of mankind, and its study 
lifts life to the level of divine wisdom and strength. 
It supplements the scientific knowledge of nature with 
the personal knowledge of God, and keeps alive in the 
soul the saving sense of personal relationship. It adds 



Appendix 23 1 

to the facts of history and the ideals of literature, the 
outlook toward a perfect moral order. It inspires the 
study of economical and social science with the supreme 
motive of struggle for the good of others. It makes 
for the largest living. The measure and quality of 
manhood are fixed by the measure and quality of its 
interests. Bible study charges life with interest as high 
as the purpose of God, as broad as the possibilities of 
human progress, and as deep as the hunger of the soul 
for truth and love. — Dr. O. E. Brown. 

I am convinced that the Bible becomes even more 
beautiful the more one understands it ; that is, the more 
one gets insight to see that every word which we take 
generally and make special application of to our own 
wants, has had, in connection with certain circumstances, 
with certain relations of time and place, a particular, 
directly individual reference of its own, — Goethe. 

If I am asked to name the one comfort in sorrow, 
the safe rule of conduct, the true guide of life, I must 
point to what, in the words of a popular hymn, is called 
"The old, old story," told in an old, old Book, which 
is God's best and richest gift to mankind. — William E. 
Gladstone. 

The Bible addresses every aspect and every necessity 
of my nature ; it is my own biography ; I seem to have 
read it in some other world ; we are old friends ; the 
breathing of eternity is in us both, and we have hap- 
pened together, to our mutual joy, on this rough shore 
of time. I never know how great a Book it is until I 
try to do without it, then the heart aches; then the 
eyes are put out with the great tears of grief; then the 



232 Appendix 

house is no home of mine; then life sinks under an 
infinite load of weariness. — Parker. 

As is well known, Stanley, on his journey across the 
continent, visited the king at his capital, Mengo, on the 
northwest coast of the lake, just before his wonderful 
trip down the Congo to the Atlantic Ocean. Seeing 
that the king and his people were intelligent, he ex- 
plained to him the civilization of his own country-— 
showing a copy of the Bible, presented to him by the 
sister of Livingstone, and telling him of its power for 
good over his own people. He started on his journey. 
After a day's travel a messenger from the King of 
Uganda overtook him, begging for the wonderful book 
he had shown. It was given to him. Stanley wrote 
immediately to England, recommending strongly that 
missionaries be sent to that people. This request was 
promptly complied with, so that before Stanley had 
reached the mouth of the Congo, the missionaries were 
sent. Now, less than twenty-five years ago, the results 
are marvelous, and they wonderfully show the power 
of the Bible with a teacher. 

As well imagine a man with a sense for sculpture not 
cultivating it by the help of the remains of Greek art, 
and a man with a sense for poetry not cultivating it by 
the help of Homer and Shakespeare, as a man with a 
sense for conduct not cultivating it by the help of the 
KihXt.— Matthew Arnold. 

No one can doubt that the Bible speaks to the human 
heart as no other book in any language has spoken. 
It gets down to bed rock. It reaches the plain facts 
of human existence. It shows the way to fill our days 
with "abundance of life,'* to make our lives not mat- 



Appendix 233 

ters of mere existence, but strong, helpful, joyous, and 
successful. — President David Starr Jordan. 

But thee, but thee, O sovereign seer of time, 

But thee, O poets' poet, wisdom's tongue, 

But thee, O man's best Man, O love's best love, 

O perfect life in perfect labor writ, 

O all men's comrade, servant, king, or priest, — 

What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, 

What least defect or shadow of defeat. 

What rumor, tattled by an enemy. 

Of inference loose, what lack of grace 

Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's, — 

Oh, what amiss may I forgive in thee, 

Jesus, good paragon, thou crystal Christ? 

— Sidney Lanier. 

The great reason for the permanence of the Bible 
lies in the fact that the Bible contains the "Word of 
God." — New York Sun. 

Do not hear or read the Scriptures for any other end 
but to become better in your daily walk, and to be in- 
structed in every good work, and increase in the love 
and service of God. — Jeremy Taylor. 

"Read your Bible," said Ruskin, in addressing 
the students at Oxford, "making it the first morning 
business of your life to understand some portion of it 
clearly, and your daily business to obey it in all that 
you do understand. To my early knowledge of the 
Bible I owe the best part of my taste in literature, and 
the most precious, and, on the whole, the one essential 
part of my education." 



234 Appendix 

Marvelous book! Itself also a subject or a parallel 
of every miracle and deliverance recorded in its pages. 
Proscribed and imprisoned, the angel of deliverance 
illumined the darkness, stripped off the shackles, and 
awed into conscious obedience the self-opening doors. 
Exiled, it has created a new kingdom and shifted the 
center and balance of power. Carried away captive, it has 
broken down rival altars and overthrown false gods, till 
the right of way has been accorded to it by friend and 
foe. Sold into bondage by false brethren, it has cap- 
tured the hearts of its masters and ascended the throne 
of dominion. Driven into the sea, it has gone over 
dry-shod, seeing its enemies overwhelmed in the flood 
and itself singing the glad song of deliverance. Burned 
on the public square of the public executioner, it has 
risen phoenix-like and floated away in triumph, wear- 
ing the smoke of its own funeral pyre as a flag of 
victory. Scourged from city to city, it has gone 
through the capitals of the civilized world, leaving be- 
hind it a trail of light attesting its divine authority. 
Betrayed by a kiss, it has stood erect in the calm 
majesty of eternitj'-, amid the swarming minions of its 
enemies. Nailed to a felon's cross, it has illumined 
the darkness by the radiance of its own glory, and 
transformed the summits of sacrifice into a throne of 
universal judgment. Sealed into the gloom of a sepul- 
chre, it has come forth with the echoing footsteps of 
Almighty God, rising to dominion over all intelligence. 
Marvelous book! Full of divine life and power. No 
one can touch even the hem of its garment without 
being healed. No one can come near enough even to 
stone it without being blessed. It stands alone, without 
a rival — even its enemies themselves being judges. — 
Bishop Charles Fowler. 



MAY 24 1912 



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